


No More Pussyfooting Around

by Indygodusk



Category: Ranma 1/2
Genre: Action/Adventure, Angst with a Happy Ending, Attempted Rape/Non-Con, Cat fist, D&D club, Demons, Earrings, F/M, Growing Up, Iriomote Island, Kidnapping, Lies, Martial Arts Geometry, Monks, Non-Consensual Soul Bond, Prophecy, Rats, Rescue Missions, Romance, Self-Help Books, Sex Education, Slow Build, True Love, messy relationships
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-11
Updated: 2018-03-30
Packaged: 2018-12-26 10:51:19
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 44
Words: 243,908
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12057453
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Indygodusk/pseuds/Indygodusk
Summary: At the age of 16, Akane became engaged. At 17, she died. But she didn't stay dead. Now at 18, she has to become an adult, rescue Ranma from kidnappers, teach sex ed to the unwilling, and fight off vicious demons. Maybe then can she live happily ever after. (from 2010)





	1. Violent Maniacs and Candy Sprinkles

 

At the age of 16, Akane Tendo became engaged to Ranma Saotome. Chaos ensued. At the age of 17, Akane died.

But she didn't stay dead.

Seconds later (or perhaps minutes, it was hard to count time when one was dead), she'd revived in the arms of her fiancé. Within the month, she'd agreed to marry Ranma, getting him the means to end his curse and hopefully kickstarting their happily ever after. Yet the wedding was sabotaged. Happily ever after (and curse breaking) was put off.

Time passed.

Nabiki moved away to attend business college, Ukyo franchised and opened a second Okonomiyaki shop, and Shampoo learned how to use pronouns (most of the time).

Nevertheless, girls still wrangled over Ranma, boys still went gaga over Akane, and crazy challengers still popped up in random places. Things had returned to normal in Nerima. Nothing had changed. At least, nothing on the surface.

Inside Akane's soul though, _that_ was a different story.

 

* * *

 

As the school bell rang, Akane slowly gathered up her pen and spiral notebook. She took her time closing the cover and sliding everything into her worn but well-loved book bag. Finally she slipped in the book of plays they'd been reading in class and shut the flap.

Stains, rips, and scuffs covered her bookbag. Brown stitches showed her attempts at mending the holes. Akane sometimes thought it a miracle that the bag had survived to her senior year of high school, considering four years of school use that included being regularly bashed against thick male heads. Akane loved this bag.

Although her sewing might never be elegant, the bag recorded her steady improvement with a needle and thread. She sometimes walked her fingers along the cloth between the oldest stitching and the newest, recounting the years. The first clumsy knot marked a time before Ranma. It was nice to have evidence that he hadn't always been at the center of her life. Sometimes, she found that hard to remember.

One large hole had been patched up and stitched to look like a cat. She'd been mad at Ranma that day. Scowling fiercely as she sewed, she had wanted to capitalize on his fear of cats by making him leave her alone when he saw her bag.

Of course, he had strolled up a minute later and mockingly asked if that was supposed to be a chicken. _Couldn't the idiot tell the difference between wings and ears?_ That plan had failed utterly.

Every time she saw her cat patch now, it made her think of Ranma. In particular, it made her think of his softly affectionate kiss while under the influence of the cat fist. Sure, he had thought himself a cat at the time; the kiss couldn't mean anything because he didn't even remember it. But Akane remembered. When she wasn't angry at him for being a jerk and driving her crazy, she sometimes wondered what it would be like to kiss him again, but this time as a man instead of as a cat.

Seeing another student still talking to the teacher, Akane stood up and leaned against a desk in the front by the windows. She held several old assignments, each bearing an 'A' circled in red. Unlike most of the other martial artists in town, Akane excelled at school. Literature class was a pleasure, not a chore to be slept though like some snoring pigtailed male who shall remain nameless.

Looking out the open window, Akane noticed several couples strolling out the gates. She felt a smirk blossom when she saw Yuka prance out holding the arm of her seventh period crush. Something interesting had happened since Akane had last talked to her at lunch. She'd have to get the details later.

Behind Yuka strolled Miaka and the captain of the soccer team. They'd been an item for years. Akane felt her smile dim. Miaka had been a good friend all through junior high. Her family owned a shrine, so the two girls had bonded early over the pressure to follow in their family's footsteps. Both had their futures mapped out for them by traditional parents.

But once Miaka discovered boys, and Akane learned to hate boys courtesy of Kuno, they had drifted apart. There’d been several times when Akane had idly wondered what Miaka would say about her situation with Ranma. However, too much time had passed and Miaka didn't seem interested in rekindling their friendship. Whenever Akane walked by Miaka's shrine now, it made her feel a little sad.

As Miaka and her boyfriend disappeared around the corner, Ranma sauntered into view. His smooth gait hinted, if you knew what to look for, at power kept very tightly leashed. Even from here, she could feel the charisma that drew so many people into his orbit. Black hair, highlighted reddish-brown in the sun, fluttered around his face. Leaning back against a tree, he crossed his arms behind his head as if settling in to wait for someone. Several boys walking by called out to him, but Ranma just smiled and waved the knot of students on. He looked isolated and almost lonely, a still pebble in the streams of scattering students. Akane sighed, wishing she knew what Ranma was thinking about as he pensively gazed towards the front doors of the school.

A sudden gust of wind swirled through the classroom, stealing the papers from Akane's lax fingers. One spirited out the window while the others scattered across the floor. Exclaiming in surprise, Akane bent over and quickly gathered them back up off the floor into a messy pile. Stuffing them safe into her bag, she went to the open window and saw her missing midterm caught between a bush and the wall outside the teacher's lounge one floor down.

"You had a question, Ms. Tendo?" Yamada-Sensei asked from his position by the door. Akane would have to retrieve the paper after her conversation with the teacher. He seemed eager to leave and his face looked pale and slightly sweaty.

Surreptitiously wiping off hands dusty from scrabbling on the floor for her papers, Akane stepped up to the teacher. "Yes Sir, I was hoping to ask you for a favor."

"What kind of favor?" Yamada-Sensei clutched his briefcase to his chest with trembling fingers.

 _The poor man must be worn out from a day of teaching,_ Akane thought. _I'll have to make this brief._ "I was hoping you would write me a letter of recommendation. It's for—"

"What?" interrupted Yamada-Sensei. He sounded almost incredulous.

Akane opened her mouth to explain, but he cut her off. "No, no. I see and I'm sorry, but I just can't." Voice cracking on the word, he paused to pull out a handkerchief and wipe his sweating face. "Despite your good grades, you've missed too many classes. I'm sorry, but you'll have to ask someone else," and with that, he scurried out of the classroom.

Bewildered, Akane could only stare after his rapidly retreating form. _What had just happened?_ She was getting a 93% in this class and had only missed a few classes due to challenges involving Ranma or kidnappings. Plus, since Ranma wasn't in this class with her, she'd never even gotten sent into the hall to hold buckets. _Akane was a good student_! She just didn't understand.

Shaking her head, she sighed and went to retrieve her paper from outside. As she walked, she tried to figure out whom else she could ask. Ms. Hinako was definitely out. Akane had heard horror stories of letters written with crayon and sparkly stickers sent to admissions boards.

As she came around the side of the building, Akane looked towards the tree by the front gate. No one waited there anymore. Ignoring the way her stomach dropped, she made her way around the side of the building.

Examining the tightly planted bushes, several of which were trimmed to resemble very ugly pineapples, Akane realized that reaching her paper wasn't going to be easy. She could clearly see it fluttering around on a low branch. To get to it, though, she was going to have to crawl between two bushes. It would be a tight fit. Hopefully no one would see her. It would look weird to be crawling around in a skirt, much less beneath the open windows of the teacher's lounge. Putting down her bag, Akane got on her hands and knees and started wiggling through.

Stretching, she managed to barely put two fingertips on the edge of the paper. As she gently scraped it closer, Akane vaguely noticed voices getting louder above her head. Another gust of wind blew by, ruffling her skirt and blowing the paper right into her face.

 _Success!_ Akane stuffed the paper in a pocket. Ready to escape the needles prickling her scalp, she started undulating carefully backwards. Then she heard her name drifting down from the open window and couldn’t help but stop to listen.

"Akane Tendo isn't that bad, Yamada-san," soothed an almost familiar male voice .

"Are you kidding me? When she cornered me in class a few minutes ago, I feared for my life! What did she expect me to write on her letter: that she's only a violent hoodlum _half_ the time?" A voice Akane hollowly recognized as Yamada-Sensei exclaimed. "Haven't you been watching her these last few years? Whenever she's startled, annoyed, or angry - in short, whenever things don't go her way - she starts hitting people and throwing things."

Akane gasped in hurt and shock, but luckily the teachers didn't hear her.

"Well," the other man responded, "she does have a temper, but usually she only hits Saotome or boys who try to ask her out. I don't think she'd actually hit a teacher or anyone innocent."

Yamada-Sensei snorted. "That's what we tell ourselves now, but mark my words - she's just going to get worse. Ten years from now her kids will be showing up to school with black eyes and covered in bruises, claiming that they fell down the stairs. She's an abusive, violent maniac!" His voice got hysterically louder as he talked, and Akane had to place a dirt-stained hand over her own mouth to muffle her reactions.

The other man made soothing sounds, but Akane didn't want to hear any more. She wrenched herself out of the bushes as quickly, yet silently, as possible. Stuffing her midterm into her bag, she heard Yamada-Sensei wearily add, "I never wanted her in my class. I just hope I survive until the end of the semester."

Shaky hands fumbled several times until she finally succeeded in securing the straps shut on her bag. Akane needed to get away somewhere private before she started to cry. Blinking rapidly, she put her head down and rushed out the gate.

Only a few steps later, someone popped up by her side. "Oi, tomboy, what took you so long?" Ranma demanded as he matched her fast pace. "Akane…?" he added when she didn't respond.

Keeping her face slanted away, Akane swallowed and tried to answer normally. "I had to pick up something. You didn't have to wait." She just wanted to escape so she could break down by herself.

 _Now Ranma will say something stupid and I'll have an excuse to punch him so he'll go away_ , Akane thought. A second later, she felt a clammy shudder ripple down her spine. That was just the kind of behavior Yamada-Sensei had accused her of. Maybe she was a violent maniac who would end up abusing her children.

"What's wrong?" Ranma asked. "Did someone accidentally eat your cooking and die or something?"

Suppressing her first instinct to slap him across the face, Akane lowered her hand and walked around his braced body. "Just leave me alone, you jerk," she growled. Despite her best efforts, a sobbing breath escaped her mouth.

Surprised, Ranma stood frozen, staring after her misery-hunched body. Then he sprinted back up to her. "H- hey," Ranma stuttered, peering up under the fall of her hair to see her eyes, "did something really happen?"

Placing his hand on her arm, Ranma gently pulled her to a stop. For some reason, she couldn't find the energy to resist. His hand felt hot on her chilled skin. The warmth was compelling, urging her to give in.

"Akane," his voice became very intent, "did Shampoo try to drug you again? Or did someone challenge you?"

Swiping her free hand across her moist eyes, she took a deep breath. "No," her voice wobbled out. Taking another breath, she raised her face. It took effort, but she made herself meet his concerned blue eyes. "No, I'm fine. No one did anything." She thought about faking a smile, but didn't think he'd believe it.

"Akane…" he sounded lost as he searched her eyes for answers. The hand on her arm shifted but didn’t let go. Bringing his other hand up, he ran his fingers slowly through her hair. She could feel the drag of his fingertips along her scalp. Tingles flowed across her skin and she had to repress the urge to close her eyes. Calloused fingers tucked several strands tenderly behind her ear before he took a step back and released her arm.

Ranma's neck bobbed as he swallowed. "You had pine needles in your hair. What’ve you been up to?"

Soothed, Akane managed to produce a small yet genuine smile. Nevertheless, she simply shook her head and slowly began walking again. Ranma matched her step for step.

They walked for a few minutes in companionable silence. "I know," Ranma teased, "you finally carried out your threat to save the eyesight of the student body by cutting down those hideous, pineapple-shaped bushes of Principle Kuno's."

"Hah," Akane replied with a bit of her usual vigor. "That was your threat, not mine."

Ignoring her, Ranma continued, "After defending the eyes of your fellow students, you found yourself famished. Yet your wallet was empty because you gave your last yen to a monk who resembled a small, furry chihuahua. Starving and wandering the grounds of Furinkan, you found yourself desolate. If only you'd kept a few yen for yourself!"

A giggle escaped Akane. Surprised, she touched her lips wonderingly. Ranma seemed too caught up in his performance to notice. Bouncing around her as she walked, he reenacted his version of recent history.

First, Ranma grimaced and covered his eyes in horror before pulling out an invisible pair of shears and chopping away. Then he rubbed his belly and groaned pitifully. Sending her a sideways glance, he performed his impression of a chihuahua-like monk collecting money. Finally, he collapsed on the ground at her feet, the picture of a desolate hero.

Staring down at him, Akane felt warmth spreading through her chest. "You," she pronounced, "are ridiculous."

Jumping to his feet, Ranma walked backwards so he could keep facing her as they talked. "Ah ah, you shouldn't say that to the person with money in his wallet." He then proceeded to pull out a yen note and wave it in her face, "money that could be used to rescue the hero of Furinkan from starvation by buying her an ice cream." Tilting his head to the side appealingly, he smiled. "Whadda ya say?"

"Well," Akane hesitated. She’d wanted to retreat somewhere to lick her wounds in private, but it was hot out today and something sweet sounded really good. Not to mention that Ranma’s hopeful smile was hard to resist.

Sensing her wavering, Ranma leaned forward and offered, "You could get two scoops, one with peppermint and one with cookies and cream. I'll even get them to add whipped cream and sprinkles. You know you love sprinkles."

She did. She really, really did. "All right," Akane gave in. Besides, this would give her a chance to practice her self-control around Ranma, she told herself. "But if you're lying to me about the sprinkles, you're dead to me. Clear?"

"Crystal," Ranma answered with a satisfied grin. Then he scooped her up and started jumping across the roofs towards downtown.

"Ranma," Akane shrieked in surprise, "put me down!"

Laughing, Ranma pulled her closer against his body and ran faster across the rooftops.

 


	2. Mistaken Identities and Mathematics

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Translations:
> 
> Airen – (Chinese) spouse or husband
> 
> Wo ai ni – (Chinese) I love you
> 
> Ranko- Ranma in cursed female form
> 
> Sensei – (Japanese) teacher
> 
> Furo – (Japanese) large bath tub for soaking

Over the next several weeks, Akane's resolve to control her temper was severely tested. Just yesterday, she'd gotten in a stupid argument with Ranma where he'd called her uncute, with legs like soggy corn dogs. _Darn the school fair for giving him new ideas for insults!_ she shook her fist at the sky.

Instead of flattening him like she'd wanted to, she'd merely pulled down her eyelid and stuck out her tongue. She'd already hit him that morning for abusing poor P-chan, so her quota for the day was used up. Then she'd stomped off and broken several stacks of wooden boards. They weren't as durable as bricks, but they were more useful for home repair, especially when she stacked the broken pieces by size for later use.

After nearly dying, nearly getting married, and nearly becoming destitute once she had to personally pay for repairs (after Nabiki left for college) when her temper tantrums damaged the house and dojo, Akane had come to some hard realizations. If only to herself, Akane admitted that she needed to grow up. She needed to learn to think things through instead of just reacting all of the time.

In martial arts, you trained yourself to stop thinking, to reach the point where you reacted automatically when someone attacked you. When scissor-kicked, you didn't have time to decide upon the most appropriate block and counterstrike. You just did it. But once a warrior has reached that level, they have to learn to start thinking through the reactions, to strategize several moves ahead so that they control the flow of the battle and achieve victory.

Akane knew that. In fights, she _did_ that. Except somehow, when Ranma or his other fiancées were involved, she didn't. When she got mad or jealous or flustered, her intellect went _poof_ and she just reacted. Usually something got hit or destroyed. Other times, she got herself into trouble. But too often, the object of her fist, mallet, or backpack was Ranma.

Most of the time Ranma deserved it for being a jerk… but not always. A couple of times, she'd caught herself staring at a swirly-eyed Ranma and realizing that actually, _she_ was in the wrong. Akane had started to see that sometimes, perhaps, just maybe, she'd misunderstood a situation.

Plus, after hearing that Yamada-Sensei at school thought she was a violent maniac, Akane realized that people she respected were judging her badly. Maybe such behavior was normal among the Nerima wrecking crew, but it wasn't in the outside world. After all, people wouldn't want themselves or their children taught martial arts by a violent maniac. It wasn't a nice realization, but she'd swallowed it. And she'd tried to start thinking for a few more seconds before reacting.

It was one of the most difficult things Akane had ever done.

On her pathway to becoming an adult, Akane had started teaching classes in the dojo. Currently she covered a children's class and a self-defense course for office ladies. She also helped Dr. Tofu out around his clinic a couple of times a week. Thankfully her fierce crush had faded into the warm glow of admiration. Working earned her a little extra cash to help repair the house, buy an ice cream, and build her college fund.

Smiling goodbye at her last student, Akane finished cleaned up the dojo and trudged into the house. She couldn’t wait to take a hot soak in the furo. The office ladies had been practicing how to escape from a rapist today. It had involved escaping from a grapple and throwing the "rapist," their teacher Akane, to the ground. Despite her best efforts and a mat, Akane’s back and arms felt mottled with bruises.

Firmly closing the bathroom door, Akane disrobed and grabbed a towel. She turned up the temperature in the furo and dropped onto the bath stool, rinsing off the sweat from teaching.  After washing her hair, she wrung out the excess moisture. Flipping her hair above her head, Akane grabbed the towel and started twisting the fabric and hair together to secure it out of the way during her hot soak. Steam filled the room in a dreamy haze.

Behind Akane came a small squeak. Unfortunately, she ignored it.

Seconds later, hands reached out and grabbed Akane. She yelped and struggled, but couldn't escape. Towel-blinded, she was unable to identify her unnaturally strong opponent. The attacker, who she realized was naked and female, wound around Akane's body tighter than an amorous octopus.

" _Wo ai ni_ ," a feminine voice breathed.

A volcano went off inside Akane’s head. She recognized Shampoo’s voice.  In the dim and steamy room, that stupid bimbo had somehow thought that a naked Akane with her face covered by a towel was really a female Ranma.

Before Akane could clarify the situation, it got worse. Shampoo grabbed Akane's hip firmly with one hand, keeping her arms trapped with the other, and flung them into the steaming water of the furo. Shrieking loudly, it took Akane several precious moments to get a hand free.

The screaming didn’t phase Shampoo at all. However, she did seem put out that Ranma had retained breasts. "Did _Airen_ make Great-grandmother mad again? Is that why you no change to man in hot water? I can get cure to make you man again if you nice to Shampoo." After this pronouncement, she wiggled. "When you man again, you come visit me and…" as Shampoo continued whispering in her fake high-pitched voice all the sexy things they'd do, Akane had to swallow back bile.

_Ugh!_ Hands finally free, Akane ripped the towel off her head. Then she reared back and whipped Shampoo hard across the face with it. A loud _smack_ echoed through the room.

Shock was quickly replaced by murderous rage as Shampoo realized the identity of her attacker. "You dare," the amazon breathed lowly, all traces of the coquette disappearing as she fingered her reddening cheek. "Maybe time to kiss you and kill obstacle once and for all."

"Just try it," Akane replied through clenched teeth, the urge to hurt the amazon singing through her body.

Before Shampoo could react, Ranma responded to Akane's screams by bursting into the bathroom. "Akane! Aka-," his voice choked off as he took in the tableau.

The two women knelt in the furo, skin naked and glistening, with one of Shampoo's arms still resting, forgotten, low on Akane's anatomy beneath the water. Shampoo had pursed her lips in preparation for a kiss (of death). The thought of what they must look like to Ranma paralyzed Akane with mortification.

Blue eyes becoming wide as saucers, Ranma turned into a stuttering idiot. "I-I-I …scream? And uh skin and hands and um, uh, guh…," then a plaintive, "Akane?" Staggering, Ranma let out a slightly hysterical laugh as he slipped on the wet ground and landed hard on his butt. From the fixed gaze and blood starting to seep out of one nostril, he didn't seem to have noticed his fall.

From the corner of her eye, Akane noticed Shampoo's face turn crafty. The evil glare disappeared and a sultry smile replaced it. "Ranma want to join Shampoo and Violent-Girl in bath?" The coquettish voice had returned. "Can help scrub back… and other things." Keeping her sultry gaze fixed on Ranma, Shampoo suddenly pulled Akane up against her body, again trapping one of Akane's arms.

"Eeeee!" Akane shrieked, breaking out of her shock and trying to push the unnaturally strong amazon away with only one arm.

Suddenly Ranma's eyes sharpened, bemusement and lust replaced with something… dangerous.

Akane saw Ranma start to move— _perhaps even heard him snarl—_ but she wasn’t the type to wait around for rescue. Elbowing Shampoo hard in the side, Akane tried to grab the amazon's arm to fling her away. However, Shampoo twisted and pulled her slick arm out of Akane's grasp. Akane's hand shot back and accidentally boxed Ranma in the ear.

Shaking it off, Ranma latched onto the arms Shampoo had wrapped around Akane's waist. Shampoo giggled and tightened her grip, "Airen play, yes?" This forced Ranma to grapple with Shampoo more closely, which was just what that hussy wanted. Akane could have been a fencepost for all that the purple-haired tramp cared.

As Ranma struggled to pry Shampoo's arms off of Akane's hips, his calloused hands slipped, rubbed, and dragged along Akane's slick skin. In the chaos of the moment, it wasn't a detail she should have noticed so clearly. The contrasting coolness of his fingers against her heated, naked flesh should not have felt so significant.

Growling, Akane struggled harder to get away. In her anger, she began to suspect that Ranma was enjoying himself. _He's probably not even trying to help me escape,_ she fumed. _Pervert_!

Eventually Ranma got one of Shampoo's hands loose, freeing Akane's arm. It gave Akane enough slack to knock the other woman back against the side of the tub. A wave of hot water splashed onto the floor.

Finally free to maneuver, Akane let out a roar and attacked in earnest. Since Ranma was still mostly dry, she knew her hands wouldn't slip on his body. Taking a firm grip on his arm, Akane spun him up into the air. Shampoo, now firmly glued to his body, flew up with him. Screaming, Akane flung both of them through the wall and out into the koi pond.

Moments later, a red-headed girl and a purple and white cat climbed out, dripping wet. "Meow," Shampoo's cat form said cutely, rubbing up against the girl's side. Perhaps she thought that this time Ranma would react differently… despite two plus years of experience.

"Yaahhh!" Ranko shrieked as she took off running. Shampoo in cat form followed.

"Idiots," Akane seethed, grabbing a towel and retreated to the outer room to get dressed. _Why couldn't that bimbo just give up?_ You would think that Shampoo would realize after all this time that ambushing Ranma at home would not make him want to marry her. Then again, you'd also think she'd figure out that Ranma's terror of cats wasn’t going to go away just because she meowed cutely.

For the hundredth time, Akane felt grateful that her father wasn't as stupid as Genma. _Imagine strapping sausages to a child's body and throwing him into a pit of cats… repeatedly! Sure, the cat fist was a powerful ki manipulation technique. But did it really matter if the user could only perform it when fear drove him so mad that he snapped and started to think that he was a cat himself? Especially when, if he was lucky enough to find a way to mentally change back to human, he forgot how to use it and what had happened when he did?_

_Like when Ranma had kissed her while thinking like a cat, the only time she'd felt and tasted the softness of Ranma’s lips._ Scowling, Akane put a brake on her thoughts. Fully dressed, she retreated to her room to lift weights and do her math homework. She tried to distract herself with numbers.

With Nabiki away at college, Akane had realized that she didn't know as much about finances as she thought she did. Almost getting married made her take a serious look at her future. Math had taken on a new priority in her life. She was supposed to be taking over the dojo and most of the teaching from her dad in a few years.

Yet what did she know about running a business? Of tax forms and tuition, of insurance and fees? Almost nothing. She knew Nabiki would help her out, still helped them out by doing the paperwork and regularly sending money home to supplement Dad's earnings, but Akane should know how to do those things herself. She couldn't expect her husband to necessarily do it for her either.

Especially if that husband was Ranma.

Looking outside, Akane saw Ranko crouched on a high tree branch in the yard directly across from Akane’s window, licking her hands and rubbing them over her face like any other cat. Akane blushed and then scowled. She wasn't about to drop everything to lug a hot teakettle up the tree to snap Ranko out of it. Akane had homework to finish. Plus she was still sort of mad at him for being a pervert. Though he had been trying to help her out. Probably. _Oh fine,_ she conceded mentally, _just one more math problem and then I'll go and fix him._

She'd swear that Ranma barely paid any attention in school. Since he'd been wandering around training for most of his life, she doubted he'd ever even had insurance. And if he actually knew what a tax bracket was or how to calculate exemptions, she'd kiss Kuno.

As her fiancée, Ranma was supposed to be her future husband. Deep in her heart, she thought that she might even want him to be. After getting back from Jusendo, she'd thought that things would become more settled between them. That the other fiancées would finally back off.

But then there was the almost wedding where Ranma had denied that he'd actually said that he loved her. _She would swear that she heard him say it, swear it on her mother's grave even, but in the face of his denial, what could she do?_ Akane Tendo would never beg for a man's love.

People had backed off for a few weeks after almost destroying her house, but then everything had gone right back to the way it was before. Her father's threats about resolving their lingering relationships proved toothless and seemed to have fallen on deaf ears. Ranma hadn't gotten rid of anyone. And despite her best efforts, Akane could not get Ranma to talk about his feelings or the fiancée situation. At all.

Despite the fact that all of her romantic aspirations seemed to have stalled, their friendship was deeper and stronger than ever. If she could just forget that he was gorgeous, and her fiancé, and that she was sort of in love with him when he wasn't being a hateful jerk and making her insane, she would be content. Right now, Akane could honestly say that Ranma was the best friend she'd ever had.

Sighing, Akane put down her pencil. She should go and get that hot water. How she'd reach him at the top of the tree was a separate problem she'd tackle when she got there. _Maybe I'll get lucky and he'll come down on his own,_ she thought.

Akane had only taken a couple of steps when she heard a thump at her window. Turning around, she saw Ranko pressed against the windowpane. The redhead's nose smooshed flat against the glass as she somehow balanced on the windowsill.

"Meow?" reverberated through the glass.

Chuckling, Akane strode over and opened the window. "Come in before you fall, you troublemaker."

Ranko jumped down into the room and rubbed against Akane's legs, purring. Giving the girl-who-currently-thought-she-was-a-cat a gentle smile, Akane ran her fingers through the fiery bangs. "Let's go get you some hot water. I'm sure you're ready to be a human again."

 

* * *

 

The next morning, Akane was viciously pleased to see that Shampoo had chosen to leave them alone for the day. Ranma kept twitching and acting very polite all through breakfast, seeming to expect punishment at any moment for his actions the day before. He still wasn't used to Akane attempting to control her temper. Perhaps it was petty, but seeing him so jumpy amused Akane.

Her good mood continued through pre-calculus, a class she didn't share with Ranma. He hadn’t got past geometry yet. On her way out, the teacher asked Akane to stay behind.

As the other students packed up, she noticed Miaka speaking heatedly with her boyfriend in the corner. Akane couldn't hear anything, but considering the way he ignored Miaka to check out Shiori's backside as she bent over to get her pen, things weren't going well. Finally, with a look of despair, Miaka stalked out.

For a brief second, Akane's heart ached. She wanted to follow Miaka out to make sure she was okay. Miaka looked like she needed a friend right now.

But then the moment passed as Morimoto-Sensei said, "Tendo-san?"

Akane turned to him with a quizzical smile. "Yes, Sensei?"

Pushing his glasses up his nose, he returned her smile kindly, accentuating the wrinkles around his eyes. "First, I wanted to say that I've noticed how hard you've been working in my class. I appreciate that you help out those around you to understand the problems on the board. You’ve always been a credit to your class and this school. I'm not the only teacher to think so."

Akane blushed, unsure how to respond to this praise. Obviously he hadn't been talking to Yamada-Sensei.

Morimoto-Sensei continued, "Secondly, I heard that you were looking for a letter of recommendation."

Akane stopped breathing for a moment. So he had talked to Yamada-Sensei.

"If you are still looking, I was wondering if I could have the honor of writing you a letter," he continued.

Akane felt her face go white, then red. "I- I was, but, well, I… decided not to bother." She didn't know quite how to say she'd been too embarrassed to ask another teacher after Yamada-Sensei's reaction.

"Please, Tendo-san," a determined look appeared on his face. "Many students look up to you as a guiding light at this school. With your grades, athletics, and leadership potential, any college should be proud to accept you. As a teacher, it is my duty to help students ascend to their next stage in life. Besides, anyone who could get Saotome to finally understand polynomials deserves a medal." Akane rolled her eyes and chuckled as she remembered that battle of wills.

"If I can help your growth be exponential instead of just arithmetic…" he paused and sent her a puckish smile. "You wouldn't deny your math teacher this little pleasure, would you?"

Blushing, Akane bowed respectfully and consented, promising to bring the form by after the holiday weekend.

As she skipped out of the school gates, Akane didn't even try to dim the grin splitting her face. "Hello, Ranma," she caroled to the figure doing pinky-finger push-ups. The tree next to him rustled with gold and red autumn leaves, matching the highlights in his hair.

"You're in a good mood," Ranma smiled. "Great, because I wanted to ask you somethin’."

Although her happiness didn't leave, it did dim with sudden suspicion. Continuing to walk down the path, she turned her head. “What?”

"So you know how you hate tutoring me in math?" he asked.

Curiosity piqued, Akane responded slowly. "Hate is a rather strong word. I'm not denying you're frustrating, but if you just did your homework, stopped doodling in class, and actually paid attention when I'm trying to help you, you'd do a lot better."

"Whatever," Ranma waved off her words blithely.

A muscle in Akane's cheek started to tick as she ground her teeth.

"Anyways, if I don't pass Geometry, they've threatened to make me take summer classes to graduate." Ranma’s face twisted in disgust. "Don't they know that the summer is when we go on big training trips?"

Akane snorted, "Well, you should start studying now then."

"Nah," Ranma replied, "I've got a better idea. The Old Lech mentioned this monastery down in Okinawa that practices Martial Arts Geometry. Isn't it perfect?"

Akane felt skeptical. "How does Happosai know about it?"

Laughing sheepishly, Ranma tugged on the end of his braid. "Well, they only have female monks, see? Only women are allowed to come and study. No men." He wagged his eyebrows. "Luckily for us, we can both pass as women."

"What do you mean by ' _pass_.' I'm always a woman, you idiot," Akane answered with annoyance. A chill breeze blew her skirt against her legs.

"Whatever you say, Akane," Ranma said in an annoying singsong. "Anyways, I need you to ask our fathers to buy us tickets to Okinawa. Tell them we're trying to work out our relationship by training together."

Akane felt completely off guard. "You want me to say what?" she asked, voice going dangerously low.

Ranma shifted his bag to the opposite shoulder impatiently. "Look, my pops has a wad of cash that he won yesterday at pachinko. I overheard our dad's talking this morning about using it to spring another wedding on us, even though they sorta promised not to. This way, we can use the money for something useful instead."

"Oh." Akane wasn't quite sure how to respond to the way he'd implied that he didn't want to marry her. Not that she wanted another surprise wedding— _definitely not_ —but still.

"C’mon Akane. If I ask, they'll know something's up and brush me off. But if you ask with those pretty big brown eyes, no way they'll be able to say no."

Once again, he'd combined an insult with a compliment, leaving Akane unsure which way to react.

"We can go down to Okinawa over the long holiday weekend, learn a few of the basic katas for martial arts geometry, and come back to ace tests for the rest of the semester. Not to mention that Okinawa is famous for their delicious bitter melons." Clasping his hands beneath his chin, Ranma stepped in front of her and put on a pleading expression. "Please? It'll be fun!"

"Well," Akane hedged. She did want to impress Morimoto-Sensei with her work, especially since he’d agreed to write her a letter of recommendation for her college application. Learning some martial arts geometry might give her an edge, even in pre-calculus.

Plus, Ranma had asked _her_ , not Ukyo or Shampoo. The other girls would bankrupt themselves just to go on a trip alone with him. Instead, Ranma had chosen her—Akane. _I thought you were going to settle for just being friends?_ a little voice in the back of her mind poked. Akane ignored it.

"Alright, I'll go, but we can't miss any school for this. If it’s taking too long to learn, we'll have to leave and come back another time," Akane warned.

Ranma let out a whoop of victory. "Yes! Martial arts geometry, here we come!" Jumping up onto the fence, he flipped and cartwheeled down its length.

Laughing, Akane ran after him. An autumn adventure learning new techniques in an exotic location sounded fun. Especially since it would be just her and Ranma. Together as _friends_ , she stressed to herself. Just friends.

 


	3. Meetings, Prophecies, and Peaches

 

Sunlight slid through the glass windows of the train station and melted into large, buttery puddles along the walls and floors. Crowds of holiday travelers splashed in and out of the pools of sunlight, chattering happily as they moved down the stairs to the street or through the turnstiles to the trains. It reminded Akane of happy times in her youth, when her mother had gathered up the family and taken them off for a day of sightseeing and special treats. Just like her family once had, she saw people detouring into the nearby bakery for a flaky and delicious treat. Akane wondered about their stories and destinations.  _ Would anyone be able to guess hers?  _

Though at this rate, she wouldn’t make her destination. If Ranma didn't show up in the next hour, they were going to miss the train to the airport. They'd already missed the original train they’d planned on taking. If they missed the next train, they'd miss their flight. Setting her bulging backpack down against the wall, Akane checked her watch again with a sigh.

_ Why had that idiot insisted that they come separately to the train station? _ If he’d anticipated some sort of trouble, she could’ve helped him out.  _ Of course, Ranma might’ve just wanted to say goodbye to his other women in private _ , she thought with a scowl.

_ Well, fine. _ If he thought that dallying with other girls was more important than making their flight, she would just go by herself to Okinawa. She could have a fun time without Ranma. She firmly quashed the plaintive voice in her head crying, “ _ Wasn't that the point of going? To be alone  _ with _ Ranma?” _

Picking up her backpack, she flung it over one shoulder crossly and stomped into the crowd.  _ Thump! _ “Ow!” cried a female voice. Akane’s backpack had accidentally hit another pedestrian, sending her staggering sideways and spilling her purse onto the tile floor.

"Oh, I'm so sorry!" Akane crouched down to help pick up the pens, lipstick, and packages that had skidded across the floor. She’d feel awful if something got crushed. Barely snatching her fingers away from the stomp of a large leather boot, Akane clutched a wad of plastic squares in her hand. "Really, really so-," Akane broke off with a squeak as she realized that her hand was full of condoms. Stuffing them back into the girl's purse, Akane tried pretend she hadn't noticed anything. "Sorry!" Looking over at the owner of the purse, Akane instantly recognized her old friend Miaka. 

"Akane?" Embarrassment and horror flooded Miaka’s scarlet face.

Stunned, Akane felt a hundred questions and speculations rush through her mind. But Miaka wasn’t her best friends anymore; they were only acquaintances. Akane didn't have the right to ask.

Swallowing back her first response, Akane stood up and extended a hand. "Here, let me help you up, Miaka." Smiling as naturally as she could, she pulled the other girl to her feet. "I'm sorry I bumped into you, really."

Miaka dusted off her knees and avoided eye contact. "Th- that's okay." 

Herding Miaka back against the wall and out of the stream of traffic, Akane examined the other girl carefully. "Did you hurt yourself?"

"No," Miaka replied with more confidence. "Just a little dirt," she glanced at Akane's eyes and seemed to relax at what she saw there, "that and embarrassment."

Akane smiled involuntarily. "After that incident in eighth grade gym, I thought you swore nothing would ever embarrass you again?"

Momentarily united in shared memories, the girls leaned close. "Akane! You swore never to bring that up again…" an evil grin tilted Miaka's lips. "I wonder if Ranma knows about that incident with Sakamoto-Sensei and the bottle of grapefruit Gokuri?"

Akane's mouth popped open in horrified recollection. "Peace! Peace!" Akane held her hands out in a warding gesture. "In fact, I don't even remember what I was talking about."

Miaka laughed and relaxed. "That's what I thought."

"So," Akane asked, "where are you off to? I'm waiting for Ranma to show up so we can go to Okinawa." Seeing Miaka's eyes narrow in speculation, Akane quickly added, "there's a martial arts geometry style that we're going to check out."

Confusion darkened Miaka's eyes. "Martial arts… geometry? Are you serious?"

A burble of laughter escaped Akane, "I know it sounds ridiculous, but yes. Ranma thinks this will get him out of actually studying for math. As for me, I'll admit that I'm curious. Besides," she added nonchalantly, "I've always wanted to visit Okinawa."  _ No other reasons to be excited for this trip _ , she told herself sternly.

"Well, that sounds interesting," Miaka replied. "I'm, well," she hesitated for a moment, "I'm going to meet my boyfriend for, for some shopping."

It may have been years since they'd been best friends, but Akane still remembered what Miaka looked like when lying. Taking a deep breath, she cautiously asked, "Do you want to talk about it?"

Miaka flinched, confirming that Akane had seen through her excuse. "No, it's fine. I just…" meeting Akane's concerned gaze, Miaka faltered. Then, taking a shaky breath, Miaka blurted out, "Oh Akane, I think I might be making a mistake, but I don't know what else to do. Everything’s falling apart." Her lower lip trembled.

Putting a gentle hand on her friend's shoulder, Akane rubbed soothingly. "Let's go over to a café, get a cup of tea, and talk." Gently guiding Miaka down the hall, Akane coaxed, "Just like we used to." Everything else had faded from Akane's mind except the need to help her friend.

A small sigh escaped Miaka as she fell into step. "You wanna split a slice of cake too?" she asked with a wobbly smile.

"Sure, as long as you don't hog it all," Akane teased gently as the dust of years fell away from their friendship. In a gesture that had once been second nature, she threaded her arm through Miaka's.

Abruptly their bubble of privacy popped as a sharp voice called Miaka's name. Both girls stopped to look up. Miaka's boyfriend stood by the exit staircase on the other side of the crowd. Spiked bangs fell unattractively over his eyes, but he had classically handsome features.

When he saw that he'd gotten their attention, he ran one hand through his hair and then leaned back against the wall to emphasize the flexing of his muscles. From the way his eyes met Akane's with a smirk, it was a conscious pose. As an athlete his body looked nicely toned, but compared to the martial artists of Akane’s acquaintance, he was a weak child. It took Akane effort not to roll her eyes.

Not getting the reaction he'd hoped for, his smirk turned into a petulant scowl. He broke eye contact and stepped away from the wall. Smiling tightly, he impatiently beckoned Miaka over.

Akane glanced over at her friend, but all hints of soft vulnerability had disappeared. "Miaka?" she asked, fearing her chance to help had ended and dust was resettling onto the cord of their friendship.

"Sorry," Miaka said as she untangled their arms, "I've got to go." Taking Akane's hand in hers, she squeezed in thanks and farewell.

"But what about—" Akane's anxious question cut off as Miaka turned away. 

"See you around," Miaka said dismissively, eyes locked on her boyfriend across the room. 

As always, Miaka acted like he was the sun and she a mere flower who followed him to survive. Akane scowled and then sighed. Whatever the problem, Miaka had changed her mind about sharing now that her boyfriend had arrived. That dirtbag was probably the problem, but then again, maybe Miaka just prefered telling her boyfriend over a girl she hadn't really talked to in years. Akane tried not to feel hurt by that.

After taking only a few steps, Miaka jerked to a stop. Spinning around, she stared through Akane with unfocused eyes. People streamed uncaringly around Miaka like water around a rock. Akane had the strangest feeling that Miaka had disappeared somewhere beyond the crowded transit station. 

Before Akane could step forward to help, Miaka’s face became grim and present. Their eyes met and Miaka flinched back. Confused, Akane blinked, only to find Miaka suddenly right there. The girl snatched up Akane's hand, locking their gazes more surely than chains and padlocks. Only a thin circlet of bronze around Miaka’s dilated eyes held back the inky, undulating darkness threatening to drag Akane down into something primal and terrifying. Akane instinctively froze.

Miaka's nails bit into Akane's hand. "Don't go. The purple cloud harvests for the rat that devours purity. Better impure than to conceive the string of pearls!" Her voice sounded intense, quiet, and piercingly pure of tone.  Akane wanted to step back from the stifling cocoon isolating the two of them from the hazy crowd, but couldn't. Miaka's eyes held her fast.

Flipping over Akane’s hand, Miaka’s fingernail stabbed into the center of Akane’s palm and began drawing painful circles, over and over until blood rose to the surface and Akane could barely keep herself from wrenching away. However, Akane’s curiosity and apprehension were too strong. She had to hear the rest. "For the mother, looping is the only hope. You've already looped back. Accept the loop between, remember to loop forward." Yanking Akane close, Miaka hissed, "Better to avoid it!"

Releasing Akane, she stepped back and blinked rapidly, tossing her hair out of her face in a completely normal gesture. Giving Akane a vague and friendly smile, Miaka said, "Take care of yourself, yeah?" and disappeared into the swirling crowd.

Akane could only gape after her. The bustle and chatter of the train station abruptly reentered Akane's awareness like the popping hiss of an opening seal. Rubbing the stinging half-moons slowly filling with dark blood on the back of her hand, Akane tried to figure out what had just happened.

The bright sunlight had disappeared behind a cloud, leaving the station full of dim corners and flickering fluorescent lights. The fast moving crowd now seemed impatient and hostile instead of cheerful. Akane felt confused and slightly scared, though she was trying to repress that. Miaka's words made no sense.  _ They were gibberish! _

On the other side of the station, she saw Miaka emerge out of the crowd and cross to her boyfriend. He reached out and casually slung an arm over her shoulders. Miaka smiled up at him and kissed his cheek. Everything looked normal, just a boy and girl meeting up in a transit station. The couple disappeared up the stairwell.

Rubbing her temple, Akane tried to figure out Miaka’s warning.  _ Don't go on the plane? Or avoid Okinawa?  _ And then there was all that rubbish about pearl necklaces and looping.

Maybe Miaka wasn't trying to warn Akane at all. Could this be a ploy to distract Akane from talking to her boyfriend? After all, he had been part of the horde of boys attacking Akane for a few months until he'd settled on Miaka instead. Jealousy had been one of the main reasons their friendship had fractured, that and the fact that Akane couldn't stand him.

Or maybe Miaka just wanted to distract Akane from the mention of whatever 'mistake' the girl had been worried about. Coul Miaka's boyfriend could help her out? Hopefully, Miaka would be okay. As much as she'd wanted to escape Miaka while she'd been talking so eerily, Akane now wished she could talk more to her, but it was too late. She'd never find them in the crowds outside before her train left.

Scrubbing her fingers through her hair, Akane came to the frustrating conclusion that there was nothing she could do about it now. Whatever words Miaka had spouted were probably her idea of a joke. Miaka had liked practical jokes, back when they'd been friends.

A discouraged glance at her watch showed that Ranma only had half an hour left before the final train. She debated whether to buy him a ticket or watch him scramble for it last minute.  _ After all, if that jerk didn't show up, she didn't want to waste her money. _

_ Right? _

Less than five minutes later, Akane found her finger selecting two instead of one when prompted by the ticket machine. She thought about deleting it, but gave in and just paid.  _ Ranma would show up last minute as always, and when he did, she would need a ticket for him so they could race over and jump through the doors of the train, hand-in-hand. _ Snuggling the two tickets into the pocket of her jeans, she walked over to the entrance to wait.

Ten minutes passed.

Despite her best efforts to stay positive, Akane was losing the battle. She felt hurt at being abandoned by Ranma and anxious about Miaka's strange words. The pressure behind her eyes was building and— _ No. You know what? No. I don't feel hurt or worried, I'm just mad. I’m mad! _

Akane found herself comforted by the flush of rage. Anger was a familiar companion, much better than those other negative emotions. If she had to be something other than happy, it might as well be mad, especially if Ranma wasn't going to appreciate her efforts to be otherwise. The straps of Akane’s backpack creaked at the clench of her fist.

As she glared at a cracked floor tile, a very familiar pair of black pants with yellow lacings stepped into view. The right foot hesitated for a moment before stepping forward. "Akane? Are you alright?"

Looking up into Ryoga’s warm brown eyes and gentle smile revealing just a hint of fang, Akane felt herself shift gear. Her fisted hands started to relax. "Ryoga," she greeted the lost boy, "I…," shaking some of the anger out of her arms, she sent her friend a small smile and focused on being pleasant. "It's good to see you. I didn't think you ever traveled by train."

Laughing nervously, Ryoga scratched the back of his head and smiled back helplessly. "I don't, actually. I saw you through the windows here in Nara and just had to come in to say hello."

"Ryoga, we're in downtown Tokyo," Akane explained gently.

Befuddlement crossed his face, followed by disappointment. The ends of his yellow and black bandanna seemed to go limp and Ryoga's shoulders slumped. But a second later, he shook himself and straightened back up.

Ryoga gave her a grin, a look that brightened his face adorably. It got her every time, the way his little fangs poked out so cutely when he grinned. "Well, I'm glad I came across you then," his smile widened until it became almost goofy, "Akane."

Fondness softened her once towering anger into a soggy sandcastle. She squeezed his arm affectionately. "I haven't seen you in weeks. I've been worried. In fact, I got all excited the last time Ranma got into a fight with P-chan," she laughed a little at herself, "thinking he was yelling at you instead and you'd come for a visit. I was pretty disappointed when I rounded the corner and saw him fighting my pet pig instead."

Ryoga had always been so easy to talk to. She considered telling him about her upcoming trip to Okinawa and Miaka's strange words. Unlike most people, he’d probably be supportive and complimentary about her attempts to control her temper, too. Thinking about her recent brush with rage, how easy it had been to slide into, she looked down at the ground for a moment in frustration. At least she hadn't broken anything this time.

When she looked back up, she saw Ryoga scratching the back of his head as if he felt uncomfortable. His smile had disappeared.  _ He must be picking up on my bad temper, _ she thought with shame.  _ Time to focus on your friend instead of yourself. _

Pushing down her emotions, she tilted her head to the side and smiled up into his eyes. "So, what've you been up to?"

The goofy grin reappeared on Ryoga’s face. A red blush washed across his cheekbones and up the tips of his ears. "Oh, well I, ah," he let loose a silly laugh. "Just travelling here and there, you know me." He met her eyes and laughed again.

It was a silly and delightful laugh and Akane found herself chuckling along with him for no reason. He really was a sweet man. She hoped that girl he liked, Akari, recognized what a gem he was. Of course, he could be a bit of an idiot around Ranma, but then again, Ranma brought the idiocy out in  _ everyone _ .

"Actually," Ryoga said, "I just came back from this little seaside village called,” looking up at the sky, he sighed, “I can’t remember the name." He put down his large yellow pack and started rummaging in it. "But I did remember to pick up a gift for you."

Akane glanced into Ryoga’s open pack. A variety of strange items met her curious gaze. A runcible spoon rested on top of a set of deflated water wings. The whimsy of the items made her bite her bottom lip in amusement.

"Here it is!" Ryoga exclaimed as he wrenched a small box out from the bottom of the pack. Still kneeling, he offered the box up to her on one hand. He blushed again. "For you."

Smiling down at him gently, Akane wondered if it was going to be mochi or a back scratcher this time. Maybe a nice seashell based on the size? "Thank you, Ryoga." She winked at him. "You know," she drawled impishly, "I do-,"  _ always love gifts, _ she finished internally, shocked silent as someone crashed into Ryoga, forcing him to drop the package to stop his face from slamming into the floor.

Looking up, she saw a  _ very _ disheveled Ranma glaring at them. "Ryoga," he spat, "whadda you think you're doing!"

Anger and irritation twisted Ryoga's face. "I'm talking to Akane, what does it look like? Get lost, loser."

Ranma rocked back on his heels and scoffed. "Getting lost is your thing, not mine,  _ P-chan _ . Why're you on your knees anyways, unless you find it more natural walking around on all fours?" He mocked.

"Ranma," Ryoga growled. Picking up the box, Ryoga stood and dusted off his pants. The package was tossed into his bag and then he turned back to Ranma with squared shoulders. Anger twisted his features, but he bit his lip before further answering Ranma's charge.

That moment of thought surprised Akane.  _ Maybe Ryoga’s working on controlling his temper too? _ In fact, he looked exactly like she felt when counting to ten in her head. Even the finger tapping on his thigh was the same.  _ Did he pick that up from the same book I did? _ She'd have to ask, though last time she'd seen the book had been when Ranma was chasing P-chan down the hall and thrown it at the poor piglet. Luckily she’d put a fake cover on it so no one could tell that it was a self-help book.

Ryoga put a hand on his hip and looked Ranma up and down contemptuously. "You're one to talk. At least I'm not the one wearing a leash."

Giving the Ranma her own once-over, Akane cataloged his rough appearance: the disheveled hair sticking out in messy spikes, patches of black and white powder speckling his clothing, slight burn marks along one sleeve, a small spatula embedding into the top of his pack like a fork in a roast, and, the article of Ryoga's taunt, a red gymnastics ribbon wound around his neck with a dangling wooden handle.

_ Yep, he'd been visiting the other women all right,  _ Akane thought. Of course, it didn't look like they'd been pleasant visits. Her lips twisted into a smirk.

Beneath Ryoga's temper, Akane saw a sly look flash briefly through his eyes. She was much more used to Ryoga's 'attack now, talk later' approach. He must have picked up some new training somewhere. That or he was finally growing up..

"You should have told me you were into, well,  _ that _ ," Ryoga’s lip curled. "I could’ve saved you some money since I'm willing to beat you up free of charge. However, I do draw the line at spanking."

Akane's mouth dropped open in shock.  _ Ryoga did  _ not _ just say that! _

Inarticulate gurgles spewed from Ranma's crimson face. Dropping his pack, he launched himself at Ryoga. Tumbling down the staircase and outside, Akane just hoped they didn’t hit any bystanders.

Half amused, half irritated, Akane pulled the extra packs against the wall and out of the way of other pedestrians. She'd seen them fight so many times over the years that she didn't really feel the need to follow them outside. Instead, she decided to clean off Ranma's pack, throwing away two throwing spatulas, a rubber duck with a razor sharp beak, and a sticky ball of dough covered in grit and hair that she removed with the spatulas.  _ Yuck _ , Akane grimaced.

Finished, she checked her watch and growled at the time. Striding over to an open window next to the stairs, she stuck her head out. Ranma and Ryoga were standing on top of the green bus shelter happily attacking one another and shouting insults.  _ Ugh _ , b _ oys _ !

"Ranma," she shouted, "I'm getting on that train in ten minutes with or without you!" 

Ranma might have twitched, but she didn't see him stop fighting, the jerk. Ryoga wasn't helping either, keeping up a barrage of attacks.

Another minute passed.

"I'm leaving," Akane yelled.

The boys continued punching and kicking. She could see their mouths moving, but couldn't hear the words. They weren't even fighting that seriously. After all, no one had used any ki attacks. Yet they couldn't bother to stop and listen to her. Below them, the enthralled crowd grew bigger.  _ After all, everybody loves a spectacle _ , she thought bitterly.

Akane was NOT happy. Deciding to try one last, slightly devious tactic before dropping both of their bags down a garbage chute—a wet garbage chute full of feral cats—Akane cupped her hands around her mouth and leaned farther out the window.

"Oh, Ryoga," she caroled as sweetly as possible under the circumstances, "if you want to go on a private trip with me, I'll share my tickets and hotel room with you. Otherwise, I'll have to find some other man to go with me, since Ranma can't be counted on."

Pulling herself back inside the station, she swiveled around to find several men staring at her butt. One sweaty little man even wiggled his fingers at her glare. "I volunteer!" he offered with a lecherous smirk.

"Not a chance," she flatly replied. Akane hadn't actually been serious about finding someone else. Well, Ryoga might be a fun friend to travel with since he had so much experience, but she wasn't the kind of girl to pick up a  _ stranger _ for a weekend getaway.

Her strategy had three possible outcomes. One- those idiots would continue fighting and ignoring her, forcing her to go to Okinawa by herself. When she got back, she’d make Ranma's life a living hell. Two- Ryoga would somehow break off the fight, boot Ranma into the sky, and come hang out with her. ( _ Though she wasn't sharing her room, no matter what she’d said. He could take Ranma's reservation.) _ Admittedly, Ryoga rarely won, and when he did he usually embedded Ranma into the ground instead of the sky, but it was still a possibility. Three- Ranma would get jealous. He'd beat Ryoga and then storm inside. There would be insults, but they’d make the train on time.

Deep down, Akane hoped for option three. It was a uniquely frustrating part of their relationship, how Akane could count on Ranma getting possessive and jealous, but couldn't count on him being complimentary or affectionate. Ranma fiercely resisted any threat to their engagement, but didn't want to act engaged. She just couldn't figure him out. His caveman outbursts infuriated her sense of independence, but they also made something deep inside her flush with languid heat. Because she didn't trust her own reaction, she’d rarely exploited this personality trait. It felt wrong and maybe even dangerous, but right now Akane wanted to be  _ wanted _ . If it worked, she'd worry about the fallout when they arrived down in Okinawa.

If it didn't work… well, maybe it was time to officially break off their engagement for good. She would pull aside her dad and be serious and calm and really get his promise this time. Then she could let it all go and just focus on being his friend. In time, Ranma might become just another cute male friend, someone like Ryoga, with a nice smile but no romantic undercurrents.

Akane ignored the disbelieving snort from her subconscious.

Picking up her bag, Akane settled it onto one shoulder. She took a deep breath and then flicked a glance outside to check on the situation. Ranma and Ryoga weren't fighting anymore, but they were still out there while she was in here. 

_ Well, they can just go on talking or arguing or- or exchanging cake recipes for all I care!  _ Grinding her teeth, Akane kicked both of their stupid bags over onto the floor. Then she stomped away into the crowd.  _ Stupid jerks! _ She was not blinking away tears, she just had dust in her eyes.

The line to get onto the train platform looked long. Craning her neck, she could see a repairman crouching down with his hands inside the turnstile. Crossing her arms, Akane joined the back of the line.

Within a minute, a duet of, "Hey, Akane!" and "Akane, wait!" echoed from the hallway at her back. She stiffened her spine, but refused to turn around. The two sheepish-looking martial artists popped up next to her, packs in hand. 

Akane felt a muscle tic in her cheek. She forced herself to take several heavy breaths.  _ Option four then. _

"Here," she said in a controlled tone of voice as she whipped the two tickets out of her pocket and thrust them at Ranma. He flinched back, as if expecting her to whack him across the face. At least he wasn't cowering with his hands over his head anymore. Though sometimes, she missed the cowering.

"What?" Ranma asked in confusion, not taking the tickets.

Akane gave him a frosty smile. "Why don't you take Ryoga to Okinawa with you, since you two like each other so much."

"Ugh," Ranma grimaced. Both boys looked ill at her words.

"Look, I'm sorry I'm late. I ran into some trouble," Ranma explained. He'd removed the ribbon from his neck while fighting Ryoga. As he spoke, he tried to flatten his wild hair. "But I'm here now, so we can still go together," he wheedled.

"Yeah," Ryoga broke in. "I'm sorry I distracted him and almost made you late, even though he started it. Please forgive me, Akane?"

Both men shot each other a little scowl and then smiled at Akane guiltily. She wanted to stay mad, but having the two of them combined giving her puppy-dog eyes was more than she could handle after the emotional rollercoaster of the afternoon. She sort of wished she had a camera.

A defeated sigh escaped Akane's lips. "Fine, but the train is leaving in a minute. We really do need to get going." Looking over at Ryoga, Akane felt suddenly awkward. "Um, I only have two tickets."

Ryoga shifted and gave her a fixed smile. "That's fine. I don't like the train anyways."

Akane felt really bad. Maybe she had enough in her savings to buy him a ticket? "Well, I could-" Akane started to say before Ranma interrupted her by loudly clearing his throat. He may have also elbowed Ryoga viciously in the side.

Jumping, Ryoga swallowed a yelp. He swung his bag of his shoulder and started rooting inside. "I need to be getting back to Akari anyways," he said in a strange voice, "I haven't visited her in awhile."

Ranma shuffled his feet, "Hey man, thanks for the fight and stuff."

"Heh, whatever," Ryoga replied with a small smile. "You need to work on your side kicks though, they're getting weak."

"Are not!" Ranma replied with an obviously fake scowl.

_ Male bonding _ , Akane thought, suppressed an eye roll.

"Anyway," Ryoga continued, "here's that gift for you, Akane. It's a sea salt scrub, good for the skin and stuff."

"Thank you, Ryoga," she said warmly, taking the small box and putting it in her pack.

"Oh," Ryoga continued, "I forgot about this." He lifted out a complex belt made of small geometric tiles and metal swirls. Akane couldn't tell if the tiles were ceramic, wood, or seashell. "It's a man's puzzle belt. It doesn't really match my outfit, so I never use it," he explained. Akane blinked at his statement, imagining Ryoga worrying about things like color coordination and comfortable yet slimming tops.

"Here," he offered it to Ranma. "Take it."

Surprise bloomed on Ranma's face, widening his blue eyes. "What? Me?"

"It's a puzzle belt, so you have to press a certain sequence of tiles and strips to both open and close it," said Ryoga. "With the way you change, you'd have to be pretty quick at the sequence to get it on or off." Ryoga gave Ranma a teasing half-smile, one fang sticking out over his lip just a little. "Maybe you're too  _ slow _ for a gift like a  _ man's _ puzzle belt though. I could get you a woman's ribbon instead."

"Hey, I'm faster than you are!" Ranma protested. "And I'm a guy!"

"You like to think so," Ryoga responded in a skeptical voice, but he relented, holding out the belt and showing Ranma the sequence of tiles and wires to shift and push. 

Abruptly, the line started moving. Akane held out a ticket to Ranma. "We need to get going," she said.

Quickly latching and unlatching the belt, Ranma beamed at both Akane and Ryoga. "This is cool! Thanks again, man." After punching Ryoga affectionately on the shoulder, Ranma secured the belt around his hips over his red Chinese-style shirt. "See you later!"

Grabbing Akane’s hand, he dragged her through the turnstile, flashing their tickets to an employee. Down the stairs they hopped, his warm hand enclosing hers as they dashed onto the train for the airport. The doors swooshed close behind their backs, almost catching Akane's bag, and the train took off with a rumble.

* * *

 

The next day, Akane looked around at the lush island greenery of Okinawa and couldn't help but smile. After a good night's sleep, she’d decided that Miaka really had been playing a joke on her. There was nothing to worry about here.

A warm breeze ruffled her knee-length blue skirt and sent hair skittering across her eyes. Pulling several strands out of her mouth, she glanced around the open market until she spotted Ranma talking to a shop owner several stalls down. Unable to resist stopping to buy a lush golden peach, she then strolled over to join them.

The portly male shopkeeper rocked back and forth on his heels as they talked. As Akane got closer, she could hear that his words were touched with a strong local accent. "Those female monks and their math are pretty popular this weekend. Another group asked after ‘em this morning, had official looking uniforms and everything, too."

When Akane stepped up to Ranma's side, he sent her a quick smile of acknowledgement before turning back to the shopkeeper. Taking a large, juicy bite of her peach, Akane happily chewed as she waited. Although her eyes couldn't help but linger on Ranma's broad shoulders and effortless grace as he gestured at the shopkeeper, she tried to focus on the taste of her peach instead. Friends shouldn’t check out other friends.

"We’re just wondering which path to take up the mountain to get there," Ranma said.

"Only women allowed up there though," the shopkeeper responded. "Won't do you no good, you're not allowed. They're scary women too, will beat you up as soon as look at you."

"That won't be a problem," Ranma said. "We're girl- I mean  _ she’s  _ a girl. We need directions because she wants to go there."

Taking another bite of her luscious peach, Akane felt juice trickling down her chin. _Mmm_ _s'good_. Her eyes fell half-closed in bliss. This might just be the best peach she'd ever eaten. Relishing the taste, she brought her fingers up to wipe the juice from her chin. After swallowing the pulp in her mouth, she licked off her lips and then the trails of juice from her palm and each fingertip.

She was contemplating the shiny trail down her forearm when she realized that no one was talking. Looking up from her sticky arm, she saw both men staring at her. The shopkeeper's mouth was slightly open, but she only distantly noticed it.

All of her attention had been captured by the dazzling vortex of Ranma's dark blue eyes. She wasn't sure how to interpret his intent expression, but it made her face flush and her breath catch. Ranma’s tongue darted out to wet his lip and her body started to sway forward. Before anything could happen, the shopkeeper cleared his throat. Ranma blinked and looked away. Dropping her arm to her side, Akane wiped it against her shirt and tried to catch her breath.

The shopkeeper cleared his throat again. "Right then, directions," and with a red face he preceded to explain. He closed with, "good luck," and turned back to unload a crate of jams onto his table of wares.

After thanking him, Ranma and Akane took off towards the trailhead. Once out of sight in the trees, Ranma pulled out a water bottle and poured it over his head. As Ranma's black hair turned red, Akane wondered for the thousandth time how a girl with such coloring came to be drowned in China. After screwing the cap back on, Ranko pulled her pants up higher, tightened her new puzzle belt above her feminine hips, and tightened the straps on her backpack.

Several hours later, Akane and Ranko came around a corner in the trail to a large, wooden gate. A printed sign next to the gate proclaimed that this was the home of a female sect dedicated to martial arts geometry. Beneath that hung a board with the words, ' _ No men allowed! _ '

Shooting Akane a mischievous grin, Ranko bounced through the gate and up the hill. Trotting after him, Akane saw a modest set of buildings and a large garden. There were no people outside, which seemed odd for the middle of the day.

As they approached the doors at the front of the main building, Akane heard a shout. The doors burst open and a group of fighters tumbled out. Two women were kicking the snot out of four men. Akane hesitated, not sure which side to join.

More men ran out from another building. They were all dressed in the same black and purple uniform. A few peeled off to help their friends, but the rest rushed straight at Akane and Ranko.

Dropping her pack, Akane prepared to defend herself. The next few minutes sped by as she took out one opponent after another. Blocking a punch to the gut, Akane twisted and sent a lightning fast kick at the jaw of her opponent. He toppled to the ground like a felled tree.

As she spun in a quick circle, she realized that they were the only ones left standing. Most of the men were on the ground surrounding a smirking Ranko. Akane relaxed and shook out her arms. Ranko yawned and readjusted her belt. "What a joke," the redhead complained, prodding one of the men on the ground with her shoe. "They didn't even put up much of a fight."

Before Akane could reply, she heard a strange popping sound. It reminded her of the celebration confetti poppers her dad and Mr. Saotome liked to use for impromptu wedding ceremonies. She looked around suspiciously for a fat panda.

Instead, lavender smoke filled the air. Akane tasted something sickly sweet and oily on her tongue. It made her cough and gag. Her head began to spin and she fell over. Pulling the collar of her shirt up over her mouth to block some of the gas, Akane tried to crawl over to Ranko. The purple smoke seemed almost opaque. It made her eyes water so fiercely that she could barely see a thing.

Blindly crawling, she knocked her head into someone’s side. "Ranma?" she asked hopefully.

"Akane," Ranko exclaimed. Scooping Akane up in her arms, Ranko started to run. Akane buried her face in the crook of Ranko's neck and held on tight. Seconds later, the sickly sweet smoke overcame her and swallowed her mind in darkness.

* * *

 

Ranma could feel Akane's moist lips pressed against the bare skin of her neck. It was an intimacy Ranma savored despite the direness of their situation. Ranma had gotten used to the fact that holding Akane only happened when something bad was going on. In fact, a favorite perk of the Nerima fights came from the opportunity to splay his hands around Akane's supple back and toned thighs. Not that he'd ever let Akane know that. She’d mallet him flat.

Abruptly Akane went limp. Heart jolting in fear, Ranko tried to run faster, but the purple smoke seemed to have no border. She must have gotten turned around. Black spots started speckling her vision.

Somehow, Ranma found herself on her knees. The ache in her head intensified when she tried to stand up again. Dizziness overcoming her, Ranma fell onto her side. Clutching Akane tighter to her chest, she pressed her precious burden between her body and the ground. Then Ranko gave in to the inevitable and passed out.

Ranma woke up when she felt someone trying to pry her hands off of Akane. "Mine," Ranma growled. Too weakened to open her eyes, she nevertheless kicked at the hands. She felt her foot make contact and someone yelped. Ranko grinned. Suddenly, more hands pressed her down, ripping Akane away. Fighting through the blackness, she managed to pry open her eyes.

A bleary glance revealed lots of water. Turning her head to the side, Ranma realized she was lying on the deck of a ship. Men in black and purple uniforms surrounded her, sorting the bodies of unconscious women. Akane legs were crumpled a few feet away from Ranko's face. Two men picked up Akane's arms and started dragging her away.

Seeing red, Ranma found the strength to surge to her feet and try to shove them off of Akane. More guards rushed over. Before Ranko could do more than heave the first two guards over the railing into the sea, someone tackled her from behind.

Multiple hands pressed down on Ranko's struggling limbs. A guard with a strange purple mark on his cheek ran up and covered her mouth and nose with a dripping, foul smelling cloth.  _ No! _ Ranma howled as claws of blackness rose once again to drag her under.

 


	4. Bondage and Beads

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning- This chapter gets DARK. It contains graphic violence and attempted rape, although nothing explicit.

 

 

Upon waking, Akane first noticed the pounding of her head, as if she’d landed in a mosh pit at a heavy metal concert. Her skull felt like it was going to break open. A second later, she realized that someone must consider skulls breaking open a valid threat, because a cloth strap circled her head tightly and bit uncomfortably into her cheeks. It must be there to keep her skull in one piece. The fact that it secured a gag in her mouth at the same time was only a coincidence, she was sure.  _ I'd rather you allow my head to just break open, if anyone cares to ask, _ she thought with black humor. A twitch of her wrists confirmed that they were tied together as well.

A brisk wind blew across her body, causing painful prickles across her bare legs. Akane shivered. Pain, nausea, and grogginess had her eyes glued shut, but it was time to wake up and get a move on. She needed to know what was going on.  _ You've been kidnapped tons of times before _ , she told herself.  _ Stop dawdling. You should be blasé about this sort of thing by now. _

Slowly Akane cracked open her eyelids. Outside an open window she saw a gentle slope leading to a river bordered by a jungle. Above the trees hung a hazy, blue-gray sky. No bars on the windows at least, so escape should be easy once she got the bindings off. She just needed to get her head to stop throbbing for a minute so she could think of a plan. As she slowly turned her head to take in the rest of the room, she couldn’t help but twitch in surprise.

Across the room, a large man crouched over Ranko’s unconscious body, her red lashes fanned shut above pale cheeks. The man wore the same black and purple uniform as the men they'd fought the temple. Ranko looked petite next to his bulk. But as Ranko had proved time and again, size wasn't everything in a fight. At least, when she was awake.

As Akane watched in increasing horror, the burly man tried to wrench open Ranko's belt. The puzzle-link clasp on Ranko’s new belt refused to budge. With a dissatisfied grunt, the man pulled out a gleaming little knife and started to saw. "Did they really have to double-dose this one? She couldn't have been as difficult as they claimed. She's too small to put up much fight," he complained in a baritone growl. "I like them all squirmy."

Gasping in outrage through the dirty rag in her mouth, Akane tried to leap to her feet.  _ She had to save Ranma! _ Before she could do more than sit up, however, a hand reached out and brutally slammed her body back down. Akane's head rebounded hard off the floor.

Painfully dazed, it took a moment for Akane's vision to clear of spiky black spots. When it finally did, she saw a second man come into focus standing above her. He wore the same purple uniform.

"Me too," he chuckled. "But luckily, mine's awake. You can have her when I'm done if you want, though I can't promise not to break her first."

Through the pulsing in her head, Akane saw him undo the fastenings of his pants. The breeze from the window made her sweat feel icy cold, even in places where the wind shouldn’t reach. Bile surged up her throat when she realized that her skirt had been pushed up above her waist and her underwear was missing.

Catching Akane’s eyes, the looming man grinned, revealing brown-stained teeth. "I like the ones who scream and struggle, so why don't you give me and my friend both a treat. She won't mind the noise." He jerked his chin at the unconscious Ranko.

"Can't be too loud though, or somebody might come and ruin things," his partner warned. "If we're gonna take off after this, you better leave the gag.  Otherwise, someone might try to come and join in, and then we'll have'ta split the girls and the profit even further," he shrugged. “Won't be as fun that way, but that's life.” 

Before Akane could find the wits to react, her attacker wrenched her bound wrists above her head. He used his other hand to push her naked legs apart. Rough nails stabbed into the flesh of her knee as she slammed them back closed. "C'mon," he growled, "be a good girl and open up." A bony knee joined the fingers prying at her legs and succeeded in pushing her knees apart. Akane felt wiry hair scraping against her inner thigh and screamed around her gag.

Rearing up, she bashed her forehead into his nose with a loud crunch. Blood exploded across her face and into one eye, partially blinding her. He screamed and flinched back. As his hold loosened, she twisted her arms free and rammed her elbow into his temple, knocking him off her body. Scrabbling to her feet, Akane barely kept upright as his booted foot kicked her hard in the right thigh, flinging her back into a table. 

The impact of her body knocked a wooden chest down onto the ground. It splintered open with a loud clatter. Coins, jewels, and broken pottery skittered across the floor. A ball of rotting cloth spun out and bounced several feet. Each impact with the floor sent up a puff of blackish-purple dust as the cloth disintegrated before her eyes. When the bundle finally rolled to a stop, a loop of glistening black cord fell out. 

Time slowed. There was something... strange about that cord. It almost seemed to be absorbing the light, causing the room to slowly dim.

"You're going to pay for that," her attacker snarled wetly through his broken nose, breaking Akane's momentary fascination. Through the blood blurring her eyesight, she saw the man pull up his pants and come up onto one knee. Her right leg almost gave out as she retreated to the side.

Glaring hatefully, Akane's attacker paused to hawk up a mouthful of blood and snot. Taking advantage of the pause, she rubbed her eyes clean of blood, restoring her peripheral vision. She saw the second man jump up to join the fight. Akane needed to end this quickly.

Blood continued to trickle from her attacker's broken nose and dripped off his chin. He bared red-stained teeth. "After I rape you, I'm going to cut up your pretty little face with a rusty knife and throw you in the basement for the rats to eat," he gurgled, then spit more blood to the side.

Putting a hand on the floor for leverage, he lunged up at Akane. She leaned back with a sob and executed a sidekick. Her foot rammed into the side of his chin with all the force of a bullet train, shattering his jaw and flinging him unconscious into the wall across the room.

The second man barely dodged his partner’s flailing body. "Bitch!" he screamed.

In response, Akane narrowed her eyes. Rushing forward, she walloped him across the side of the head with her bound fists. He grunted and staggered back, but didn't go down.

Bringing up the shiny little knife hidden in his hand, he slashed at her. The sharp blade slid through her shirt like it was butter. For a moment, she didn't feel anything.  _ He missed, _ she thought with relief. 

Less than a second later, fiery pain burned through her side. Akane whimpered with shock and pain into her soaked gag. As she dodged his wild slashes, she could feel wetness seeping down her body. Each movement hurt.

Staggering back, Akane feared that this was a fight she was going to lose. More and more, she was having trouble getting enough air through the thick cloth in her mouth and her runny nose. The tight bindings on her arms also made maneuvering difficult. Now that she'd been cut so deeply in the side, she had a limited amount of time before she passed out from blood loss. Things were not looking good.

Out of the corner of her eye, the bright red of Ranko's hair caught Akane's eye. _Ranma would never quit_ , Akane thought. Hundreds of images of Ranma fighting, getting knocked down, failing, only to get back up again until he finally _won_ raced through her mind. _He doesn't know the meaning of the word!_ _Well, neither do I,_ Akane declared to her aching body.

Resolved, Akane waited for an opening in her opponent's defenses.  _ I've got to protect Ranko until she wakes up.  _ Seeing an opening, Akane hit her attacker with a back kick. He staggered, but didn’t drop the knife.

After barely dodging several more blows, Akane knew that she needed to end this soon. Her energy was almost gone and she felt like throwing up. If she did that with the gag in her mouth, she could choke to death on her own vomit. Swallowing hard, Akane barely avoided another slash.

Then Akane got lucky. Her attacker stepped on the glistening black cord and his foot rolled. It was only a slight stumble, but it was enough.

Akane put all of her power into a spinning kick. The ball of her foot slammed into his solar plexus, folding him over her leg as all of the breath exploded out of his body. Bringing her hands down hard on the back of his neck, she knocked him out cold. His body dropped onto the wooden floorboards like a stack of bricks.

Panting through her gag, Akane waited for more guards to come running at all of the commotion. When no one appeared, she realized that they must be used to screams around here. The thought made her feel even more ill. Turning the man's unconscious body over with her foot, Akane looked for his knife.

Finally she spied the hilt sticking out underneath his ankle. Kicking his leg away, she flopped down and grabbed the knife. She had to hold the hilt awkwardly, with the blade parallel to her forearms. Akane sprawled sideways onto the ground and sawed determinedly at her bonds.

Time slowed, like oozing honey. It felt like her strength was draining into the ground.  _ Had she felt this weak a minute ago? _ She couldn't remember. Warm blood pooled beneath her side. Something thin and hard beneath her body dug into her skin painfully. 

Added to that, the bloody knife kept jumping out of her fingers, as if it had a will of its own. But Akane Tendo was nothing if not stubborn. She would not quit or be defeated by a little knife.

Finally an eternity later, the rope parted. Akane had nicks all over her forearms, but her hands were free. She rubbed her painfully tingling fingers as the blood rushed back into her hands and then gingerly cut off her gag. Spitting out the foul fabric, half splattered with her opponent's blood, she slowly rotated her aching jaw and sprawled onto her back. Being able to close her mouth felt blissful. She wanted to just lay her head down on the floor and sleep.

Yet there was something she still needed to do.  _ What was it?  _ A voice urged her to ignore it, to just lie there and let her pain seep away into the floor. A moment or two more wouldn't hurt anything… but Akane couldn't quit. 

_ You don't know the meaning of the word, remember? _

Gritting her teeth, Akane slowly forced herself up onto her side and, even more slowly, onto her hands and knees. It felt like the floor was suctioning onto her body, trying to hold her down, but she fought against it.

Akane had decided to stand up. Therefore, nothing was going to stop her. Simple. A minute later, she felt a surge of success and renewed energy as she stood swaying on her own two feet.

Looking down, she saw the black cord saturated by the blood spattered across the floor. Some of it came from the two unconscious guards, particularly that gusher of a bloody nose, but at least one of those puddles came from the gash in her side. If she continued to bleed like that, she was going to be in big trouble. Bigger trouble.

Then Akane remembered, "Ranma!"  _ How could she have forgotten Ranma? _

Stumbling over to the redhead, Akane quickly cut her friend loose. She felt exquisite relief when she saw that Ranko's pants were still in place, the belt only partially cut. There didn't seem to be any other wounds besides a shallow scrape along the side of her face.

"Ranma," Akane called as loudly as she dared. She didn't want to bring any more guards. "Wake up." When shaking failed to rouse her friend, Akane started to get angry. Better that than scared.

"You idiot, stop being so freakin' lazy!" Akane slapped Ranko. Hard. But Ranko's pale face simply lolled to the side, unresponsive.

Akane bit her lip in worry.  _ What had that guard been saying earlier? Something about a second dose? _ Whatever the gas or drug was, it had proven to be surprisingly effective. She couldn't think of anything else that would keep Ranma asleep through a battle, much less an attempted rape.

_ Don't think about that right now _ .

Seeing a purple sash discarded on the floor, Akane picked it up. It looked mostly clean. Taking a fortifying breath, Akane lifted up her sliced shirt and examined her side. The gash still bled sluggishly, but she didn't think it had gone deep enough to puncture any organs. Not that she could do anything about it right now if it had. Gritting her teeth, Akane wrapped the sash tightly around her waist several times and knotted it.

By the end of this procedure, her breath came in panting little whines. Black and white spots jumped across her vision. She was thoroughly sick of the little black spots. Seconds later, Akane fell to her knees, gagging. Pain wracked every inch of her body as she vomited repeatedly onto the floor.

_ Don't pass out, don't pass out, don't… pass…out. DON'T!  _ Finally, Akane's heaving stopped. She had nothing left to bring up. Spitting one last time, she wiped her mouth off shakily. Then she crawled over to Ranko.

The redhead still hadn’t woken up. Akane picked up Ranko's hand and held it in her lap. Placing her fingers over Ranko's healthy pulse, Akane let the solid beat of it soothe her. Just touching Ranko made her feel a little bit better, as if strength were flowing into her body. She counted heartbeats until she reached two hundred.

Akane was going to have to rescue both of them.

_ No problem, _ she told herself. It would give her something to hold over Ranma's head after this was all over and, strangely enough, she had started feeling better. Taking a deep breath, she released Ranko's hand with a caress and stood up.

Another wind swirled into the room from the open window. The air crawled up her legs and skirt, all the way up her skirt. Akane swallowed hard. Feeling sick again, she searched the room for her missing underwear. She couldn't find it anywhere. Akane had to sit down and put her head between her knees before she hyperventilated and really did pass out.  _ You can’t think about this right now, you just can’t. _

When she finally calmed down, she checked on Ranko again, but the girl was still passed out. Looking at the notch cut on Ranko's belt, and thinking of her own lost panties, Akane felt a bolt of livid rage explode in her mind. Something snapped. Akane found herself standing over the unconscious guards with the knife clutched in her hands.

_ Go ahead _ , something whispered in her mind,  _ they deserve it. No one will ever know. A little more blood on the ground won't make a difference. _

Flushed with rage, Akane dimly realized that her self-help books hadn't prepared her for this. She could feel the solid hilt of the blade in her hand, tacky with blood, begging to be used. She'd never been this angry before.

_ Anything goes martial arts, right? _

_ But is stabbing helpless men really part of the code? _

_ They'd do it to you, after raping you and Ranma both. _

_ But…. _

The pressure inside her head built, until finally she couldn't take it anymore.

_ Do it! _ Something inside her head shouted.

With a strangled snarl, Akane stabbed the blade as hard as she could into the red-spattered floor. It sunk in up to the hilt, quivering, equidistant between her would-be rapist's throat and the loop of ebony string saturated by the pool of her congealing blood.

Akane Tendo had a lot of practice ignoring the voices in her head. Sure, those voices usually whispered sweet nothings about Ranma instead of trying to get her to cut somebody's throat, but it was the same principle. All those weeks of controlling her violent tendencies also helped.

However, sparing their lives didn't mean she didn’t feel angry. Jumping up, Akane found herself kicking and stomping her attackers in a mad tap dance of revenge. She concentrated particularly on the genitals. Finally, panting, she stopped. It would be hard to identify the two lumps of flesh on the floor as human beings anymore, but they were still alive.

Akane felt a lot better. The renewed ache in her side was totally worth it. Taking a deep breath, she decided that it was now time for her and Ranko to escape. First, she had to get out of the building. Then an escape down the river would be their quickest getaway. After that, they would find some nice people to help get them back to the city.

Ignoring the fact that she couldn't swim, Akane concentrated on her first goal. A quick glance around the room showed her the limit of her assets: some sashes on the floor by the wall, two unconscious guards, an empty table, and the broken box with coins and gems on the floor.

As for the 'valuables,' they would just weigh her down. The coins and gems wouldn't help her escape. If she did run into any guards, they'd just take them from her before she could even get out the word 'bribe.'

However, those sashes could be useful for more than just bandages. Picking up several, Akane turned them over in her hands a few times in consideration. Decided, she began knotting them together until she'd constructed a harness to help secure Ranko to her body once they got in the water.  _ If only Ryoga had given me his water wings instead of those bath salts _ , she thought longingly.

When she finished, she looked around the room again. There had to be something else useful in here.  _ The knife? _

Akane didn't want to touch it again, but it was her job to protect Ranko until she woke up. With a gash in her side and a likely concussion, Akane needed all of the help she could get. Firming her lips, she forced herself to walk back over to the blade stuck in the floor. Akane came within a few feet of it before some inner sense of revulsion boiled up and sent her stumbling to a stop.

_ Something was wrong. _ Wrong or different,  _ but what? _ The hair on the back of Akane's neck prickled. Her empty stomach churned. Taking a slow breath, she took a step back and examined the scene.

_ Everything looked just as she'd left it, didn't it?  _ The hilt of the blade protruded from the wooden floor and reflected in the high gloss of the golden-brown floorboards. On the floor nearby lay a necklace of blood-red beads, which scintillated in the sunlight from the window. A few patches of decayed cloth rested nearby.

The longer she looked at the scene, the more her eyes kept returning to the necklace. As she watched, the light across each bead seemed to ripple, as if there were pale pink shapes undulating inside. Akane took a step forward. Around the necklace, gray shadows and thin red streams seeped along the clean floorboards like water down a drain. The crimson beads on their black string pulsed.

As she watched, the dark red of the beads slowly began to change, lightening to the blush of a woman's cheek and then the pink luster of a peony petal. It was the loveliest thing Akane had ever seen. The necklace turned paler and paler, until only white pearls remained. Each pearl contained a squirming, ghostly shape. She couldn't quite make them out. Akane squinted and stepped closer. She wanted, needed, to put the necklace on. It called out to her. Kneeling down, she slowly stretched forth her hand.

 


	5. Pearls and Distressed Damsels

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Baka" means idiot, stupid, or moron.

 

Inside her mind, Akane dimly heard a voice shouting. From moment to moment the tone changed, from male to female to strangely feline. Later there would be time to figure it out. Right now, the necklace needed all of Akane's attention.

Smiling gently, she leaned forward. It was communicating with her.  _ Those small wiggling forms in the pearls are…. _

Fingers only inches from the lucent pearl necklace, Akane heard a soft moan. She paused and leaned back. Tilting her head, she tried to push through the thick fog shrouding her thoughts.  _ That sound should mean something _ , she thought with a frown. Faintly in her mind she felt something clawing for her attention, yelling at her to GET UP.

_How strange,_ Akane thought, but the beauty of the pearls quickly extinguished her brief spark of worry. A blanket of tranquility smothered all thoughts but those relating to the necklace. The pearls needed her. She could only focus on that. Akane had to help them, to soothe their hunger. She just needed to know how. _Could it really be as simple as putting them around her neck?_ Something inside her revolted at the thought. _Maybe she misunderstood?_ Leaning forward, she tried to listen harder.

Unfortunately, the renewed yowling of the chorus in her head made it difficult to hear the pearls. Akane's tranquility, a foreign emotion to begin with, slipped. The mental shouting seemed both irritating and supremely familiar, but she couldn't identify it because she was too distracted trying to help the pearls. However, the voices wouldn't  _ shut up _ . Annoyance gave way to anger and Akane gave in to instinct.

"Baka!" Akane cried right before slapping  _ herself  _ across the face. The force knocked her body off balance and twisted it to the side. She barely caught herself before faceplanting onto the floor.

Shocked, both cheek and hand stinging, Akane found herself looking at the legs of the two bloody guards splayed across the floor. She felt utterly confused, her thoughts muddled.  _ What just happened?  _ Feeling woozy, Akane put her hand down on the floor to steady herself.  _ I must have lost more blood than I thought.  _

_ Wait a minute… _ Akane slowly looked down.  _ Earlier, the floor felt tacky from all of the blood spatters.  _ She flexed her fingers against the smooth wood in confusion. _ But now it's clean _ . Somehow, all of the blood had disappeared.

_ Was she going crazy? _

Closing her eyes, Akane forced herself to breath through the weight of fear sitting on her chest. She heard a soft scraping sound, but ignored it. Slowly her memory of the last few minutes seeped into the forefront of her mind and solidified into a burning realization: the necklace was evil. 

_ She had to get away from it. Now. _

Keeping her head turned away, Akane opened her eyes and rocked forward. However, before she could complete the motion she saw something that forced her to jerk to a stop. On the previously bare floorboard directly in front of her knees sat the glistening pearls.  _ Had they somehow moved while her eyes were closed? _

_ That's not normal _ , she thought with a bubble of hysteria. Akane began to scramble back but… suddenly she lost all motivation to move. Deep in her mind a masculine voice swore sharply before being muffled.

Really, Akane was being silly. The necklace was so beautiful and she was used to lots of not-normal things, like people changing shape when hit by water. Not normal could be interesting, and the beads looked so intriguing with those little forms swimming in each one that she really needed to pick the necklace up right now and put it on around her neck. Details didn't matter, so she should stop thinking about it.  _ Why were her hands fisted into her skirt anyways? _ She couldn't remember. One finger at a time, she began relaxing her white-knuckled grip.

Unexpectedly, a feminine whimper needled through the air, piercing through the wool muffling her thoughts. A hoarse voice painfully whispered, "'Ka…ne…." It stabbed straight through her head and down to her heart. "Akane," called the voice again, sounding plaintive, demanding, and a little bit angry.

The thoughts encouraging her to put on the necklace became faint, stifled by her heart's billowing cry of, " _ Ranma _ !"  _ She had to get to Ranma. _ Physically wrenching her head away, Akane resisted the painful force pulling at her mind. Scrambling clumsily to her feet, she staggered across the room to the redhead's side and dropped to her knees.

Panting as if she'd just sprinted across town instead of across the room, Akane felt exhausted. She didn't think she had the energy to stand back up, much less escape the hypnotic necklace one more time. All she wanted to do was collapse into Ranko's arms and let the redhead save the day.

So far, it had been a really crappy day.

As she looked down, Akane saw the pale-faced redhead try to come up onto her elbows before collapsing back down onto her back. Ranma’s deep blue eyes blinked, struggling sluggishly to stay open against the pull of the drugs still circulating in her body. Akane felt her hopes wither into a brittle ball and die.

Slowly exhaling against the panic pounding through her chest, Akane accepted that she would have to get both of them out of here by herself. If she’d had more energy, she might have cried. Luckily, she didn’t have the energy for hysterical laughter either.

Putting on a good face, she leaned over Ranko so the girl could see her better. Immediately, Ranko focused on Akane's face. "You," crinkling her brow, Ranko asked hesitantly, "you're really here?"

"'Course I am," Akane answered, bemused by the unexpected question. 

Something vulnerable softened the curve of Ranko's lips and Akane felt another piece of her heart surrender. "Good," Ranko breathed. 

A moment later, Akane felt Ranko's hand slide down her forearm and over her palm to intertwine their fingers. A wave of tingling warmth swept up Akane’s arm, swirled through her chest, and spread across her body. Ranko's clasp tightened and Akane's whole body relaxed. She didn’t understand what was happening, but it felt nice. 

Licking chapped lips, Ranko's brows abruptly furrowed. "Wait, are you okay? Did they hurt you?"

All of the horrible things Akane had experienced since waking up flashed through her mind, but… "I'm fine," Akane lied with a straight face as she pushed several flame-red strands of hair out of Ranko's eyes. The other girl looked too pale. "I'm a martial artist too, you know." The oft-repeated defense covered a multitude of omissions that the pigtailed martial artist did not need to know about in her condition. "Besides, you're the one lying on the floor like a damsel in distress, not me," Akane mocked.

"Hey," Ranko protested, "I ain't no da-" unexpectedly she stopped, a look of concentration appearing on her face as her gaze went unfocused and drifted to the side. 

Before Akane could ask, Ranko’s eyes snapped up again, boring straight into Akane's. "You need to escape," she urged. After delivering this command, Ranko's long red eyelashes slammed shut and her features went lax.

A split second later, it felt like Ranko's hand become molten lead within Akane’s grasp. She gasped in shock and jerked as what felt like burning fingers slipped beneath the surface of her skin. They smoothed quickly up her veins and plunged deep into the ventricles of her heart. Akane's perception convulsed and exploded in gold sparks.

When her vision cleared, Akane felt full of strength and mental clarity. A shocked look down showed Ranko's hand still whole in hers. If anything, it felt a little cooler than usual. Akane didn't understand it, but she knew what she had to do. She had to get them out of here.

Standing up, Akane decided to try the door first. It had been locked from the inside. Barely cracking it open, she peeked out into the hallway. A guard dressed in black and purple ambled down the corridor. Swiftly but silently she closed the door and turned the lock.

_ Option two then _ , she thought bracingly,  _ the window. _ Grabbing the rope of sashes she had knotted together earlier, Akane looped it over her shoulder. Then she crouched down and picked up Ranko. Staggering to her feet, Akane felt grateful that Ranma wasn’t a boy right now. Escaping would be hard enough without adding a foot of height and the bulk of his muscles. Just his girl-form was almost too heavy.

Akane very carefully did not to look at the other side of the room or anywhere near the floor for fear of catching another glimpse of the necklace. Despite her fear, she felt a tickling temptation to look for it anyways. Only the solid weight of Ranko in her arms kept her focused.

Once at the window, Akane sighed gratefully at being on the ground floor. The scraggly grass started about four feet below the windowsill. Grunting softly, Akane maneuvered Ranko's feet out the window and slowly started lowering her body.

As Akane stepped closer to the wall to lift Ranko's chest and shoulders out the window, she felt her foot come down on something round. Her ankle rolled. Akane's grip on Ranko's body slipped. An involuntary cry escaped Akane's lips as she tripped and started to fall. Her knee thudded painfully hard into the wooden floor and she felt the skin split with a painful zing.

For a brief second she glimpsed the white pearls mere inches from her bare skin before something jerked up hard on the back of her shirt. The force twisted her body up and around, causing her shirt to ride up in a chokehold around her neck. Flailing and unable to breath, Akane caught hold of the windowsill. With her other hand, she reached back and grabbed at whatever was holding her. Untwisting herself, she took a deep breath of sweet oxygen. She realized that Ranko's arm had somehow gotten caught in the back of her shirt when she fell.  _ Even unconscious, Ranma was still saving her. _

Freeing Ranko's arm, Akane let her friend’s body drop out the window. She didn't have time to be more careful. They just had to get  _ away _ ! Ignoring the renewed pain flaring in her side, and now her neck and knee, Akane hopped up and straddled the window frame.

Looking down, she saw the shimmering pearl necklace directly below her dangling leg. A scarlet drop of blood plopped off her wounded knee and spattered onto the floor. The blood instantly slurped across the floor and disappeared into the necklace.

Akane felt a jolt. She needed to go back down for the necklace, sake its hunger like her blood had… except the momentum from her swing was already taking her out the window. Distracted and uncontrolled, she tipped out the window and smashed down onto Ranko's unconscious body.

Suppressing a groan, Akane untangled their limbs. They both had more bruises, but she just felt so grateful to be out of that room. The guards were unconscious and the necklace hadn't possessed either of them. Akane counted that as a win.

Taking a deep breath, she threw Ranko over her shoulder. Skirting the walls of the building where the shadows were deepest, she moved towards the river. It might be quicker to cut across the courtyard, but it felt too open. If they were seen, Akane didn't think she could run fast enough to avoid being recaptured, especially not carrying Ranko.

As she looked down the wall of the building, she counted five windows to cross. Luckily, they looked closed. Nevertheless, she did her best to move as silently as possible. At each window, she made sure to stoop down so their bodies stayed hidden below the window ledge.

Almost to the end of the building, Akane suddenly heard the scrape of a window opening above her head. Immediately she crouched down and froze.  _ Darn it, they were so close! _

Through the open window she could hear two men talking. "Stop worrying about it," a bass voice growled loudly with annoyance. Akane pressed Ranko closer against the wall.

"But haven't you noticed the difference?" a tenor voice asked. His voice sounded quieter. Perhaps he stood farther from the open window.

"The Captain is still the same where it counts," the first soldier argued.

Akane heard the other man snort. "He's calling himself the Prophet now, what about that?"

"I don't care what he calls himself as long as he's still fighting for the freedom of the Ryukyu Islands." A strange squelching sound echoed out the window, followed by a slurp. "Okinawa has been polluted too long by foreign filth. First the Chinese, then the Japanese, and now even those filthy Americans. This time we might finally have a weapon powerful enough to get rid of them all!"

"I'm not arguing about that," Akane heard the tenor reply with frustration. A second later she flinched as a peach pit came sailing out of the window and over her head to land in the yard. "You know that my hatred of them is as strong as yours! It's just that- it's a demon! Whatever it needs pure female warriors for… you know it can't be good. How do we know it will really help us? That it can even be trusted?"

As Akane reeled from what she had just heard, a  _ demon _ , the other man sighed loudly. "What other choice do we have? Nothing else has worked for Okinawa. You need to trust in the Captain, or rather, the Prophet."

"I know, I know," his friend replied, clapping his hands together. "But all of this waiting is driving me crazy."

"Well, whadda ya say we go and harass the guys on kitchen duty, or maybe even the female prisoners? That could be fun." Laughing gustily, he closed the window.

Out of the blue, the words ' _ Saotome secret technique' _ rang though Akane's mind, almost as if Ranma had shouted them. Yes, running away right now seemed like a very good idea. If she didn't hurry, they might notice missing prisoners or find the two unconscious soldiers. Once the alarm sounded it would be harder to get away. Knowing that a demon was connected to all of this made her even more determined to escape.

Firming her lips, Akane adjusted Ranko more securely over her shoulder. Then she ran as quickly as possible to the open riverbank. On the opposite shore stood verdant jungle trees, but this bank had been cleared of vegetation by the soldiers. The river was their best option to escape, never mind that she couldn't swim or that Ranko was unconscious. It had to be done, so she would do it.

Akane quickly swung Ranko's body around so that the girl rested flush against her back. In this position Ranko's legs hung loosely around Akane's waist. After making sure that she could still move relatively freely, Akane tied Ranko to her body with the sashes.

Then she stepped into the cool water… and promptly slipped. Her face went under and Akane choked. Surging to her feet, Akane coughed salty water out of her nose and lungs. As soon as she could breathe, she frantically put her hand back to check on Ranko. The unconscious girl coughed a few times, but didn't wake up. All of Akane's cuts stung fiercely in the salty river water, but it was too late to back out.

Fiercely suppressing her misgivings, Akane examined the riverbank for options. A few feet away sat a pile of tangled driftwood. Splashing over as quietly as possible, Akane yanked out a log. Immediately one end moved away from shore with the current and started drifting downstream. Before it could get away, Akane flung her arms over it and wedged her fingers into a split in the wood. She tried to find comfort in the fact that the log would camouflage their bodies from pursuers. Water lapped at her chin, teasing her with how close she was to drowning. Kicking her fears to the side, Akane focused on the fact that she could still breathe and that Ranko's head was staying above the water. 

Taking reassurance and strength from the warm body pressed against her back, Akane kicked her feet, sending them into deeper water. The current quickly caught them up and swept them downstream. She needed to get away from the soldiers, the evil necklace that drank her blood and hypnotized her mind, and potentially a demon. But more importantly, and what Akane was focusing on, Ranma needed help. Akane would not let her down.  _ She wouldn't. _

-To Be Continued-

 


	6. Frog Princes and Filthy Caves

 

Water splashed intermittently across Akane's face, making it hard to anticipate when to hold her breath. A cough racked her frame. Her hands clutched the log so tightly that splinters peppered the length of her fingers. Akane was trying very hard not to panic _too_ much.

Not panicking at all was impossible.

If only she could swim, or didn't have an unconscious Ranko strapped to her back, or perhaps if a lifeguard crouched on the bank of the river, ready to swan in and save her at the mere hint of drowning. Maybe then she might feel calm and collected. As it was, she teetered on the edge of screaming hysterically and flailing to her certain death.

Stretching her neck as far above the river as possible, Akane spit out another mouthful of water. She wondered how far she needed to go before she could get out. Hopefully that point came really soon.

As they floated around a gentle bend in the river, Akane took to examining the verdant jungle hovering on either side to distract herself. She noticed a black and yellow striped snake basking on a rocky outcrop. Its vivid, aposematic coloration warned predators that this meal would not only taste bad, it might poison you.

Readjusting her grip on the slippery log, Akane wondered if she should invest in some dangerous-looking clothing. Nothing else had warded off the overly amorous suitors and kidnappers. Then again, any change in wardrobe would surely attract mockery from Ranma.

Huffing, Akane hoped they survived this adventure to bicker again. In fact, she looked forward to arguing with Ranma. "If you would just wake up," Akane offered beseechingly, "I'd let you say anything you liked about me. No matter what the insult." She had to pause to cough out another mouthful of water. "I wouldn't even get angry." For a second Akane felt Ranko shifting against her back and felt her hopes rise, but it was merely a wave of water pushing Ranko's body.

Floating down the river, Akane saw other streams pouring into the central channel she drifted down. A stunning, three-tiered waterfall sent sprays of water into the air to form a mist of scintillating rainbows. Although beautiful, the waterfall also worried Akane. If her log went over one, she would probably fall off and drown them both. _Just one more way to die on this adventure_ , she thought with black cheer.

Trying to chase away her morose thoughts, she returned to examining the jungle. Deeper in the shadows of the trees she occasionally noticed the outline of larger animals stalking through the underbrush. Despite squinting, she couldn’t identify them more clearly. High in the canopy swayed vines bedecked in frilled fuchsia and apricot-colored flowers. Over the river hung large green fronds that fluttered in the breeze. Along the central stem she occasionally noticed a clinging frog. They had large black eyes, white bellies, and greenish-brown spots along their backs and down their noses. She found them rather adorable.

Each time she passed beneath the frogs, she heard their chirping mating calls. The sound didn't fill Akane with any romantic urgings, but then again, she wasn't a female frog. Moreover, she wasn't looking to meet anymore princes. She'd been kidnapped enough times already, thank you very much. Princes weren't all they were cracked up to be in the fairytales.

All too soon the sun sank low in the western sky, washing it with that faded denim color that heralded afternoon's tumble into evening. Soon the sky would pale into the reddish-gold of sunset. Akane knew that she needed to get out of the river before full dark. How she'd accomplish that from the center of a river with banks far above her head, she didn't know. She just would.

At the next bend in the river, Akane caught sight of something straight out of a nature documentary. Up ahead where the river lay in deep shadow, a small feline delicately made its way across a rotting log slanting down into the river. Stopping midway down the log, the cat peered down and dangled one clawed limb out over the water.

_Fishing_? Akane wondered as she noted the dark spots and stripes banding its back. A relatively short, bushy tail twitched lazily above its crouching body. White lines traced along each eye, with two more arching above its nose and over its forehead. As she drifted closer, the wildcat remained oblivious to her presence.

All of a sudden, Akane realized where she'd seen a cat like that before… her middle-school textbook! That was an Iriomote cat, the only native feline in Japan! Akane remembered learning that fewer than 100 cats existed in the wild. They tottered on the verge of extinction.

Well, at least now she knew exactly where she was in Okinawa: Iriomote Island. Unfortunately, she also remembered that most of the island was covered in thick jungle with barely any settlements. Help would not be easy to find.

When her log came within thirty feet of the Iriomote cat, it looked up curiously. Tilting its ears, it focused its gaze on Ranko. Its tail twitched back and forth in a faster rhythm, but otherwise it didn't seem very alarmed by the approaching humans in the river.

However, as soon as its eyes drifted to Akane's face, it abruptly reared back and hissed, revealing sharp fangs. Racing to the very tip of the overhanging log, it poised itself as if to leap off to attack her when she came close enough. The cat’s small but razor sharp claws glinted threateningly.

Akane's blood ran cold as her log floated closer and closer to the vicious-looking cat. If it attacked, scratching Akane's face and arms bloody, she would almost certainly lose her grip on the log and drown both Ranko and herself. Yellow-gold eyes bored into Akane's. The log drifted closer. The entire jungle seemed to hold its breath.

Unexpectedly, the cat lifted its head to the sky and yowled, blasting Akane's eardrums. Pulse jumping, Akane instinctively tried to jerk away from the threat, but there was nowhere to go. Her grip slipped from its perch and skidded over the slimy log. One fingernail snapped off with a white-hot bolt of pain. Akane panicked and gasped.

It was almost a fatal mistake.

Water poured into her mouth, up her nose, and down her throat. Bubbling foam blinded her eyes. Akane choked, unable to breathe. Her body plunged further beneath the water. She felt death hovering with outspread arms, just waiting to catch them, anticipating.

Fingers scrabbling, she finally caught a knot in the wood, halting her slide with a violent jerk. Jamming her remaining fingernails into the log, Akane surged forward until her nose cleared the water. Biceps burning, Akane coughed with her mouth closed, trying to clear her lungs. Nausea and dizziness sloshed across her body. Breathing haltingly through her nose, mouth still submerged, Akane slowly clawed her way back up the log, inch by inch. Ranko's weight on her back compressed her lungs, making it even harder to draw in air.

Finally Akane's mouth cleared the surface of the water. She tried to take a deep breath, but immediately began hacking up water and spittle. Sobs shook her frame. It took an eternity for her body to settle down and allow her a full breath of air.

Before Akane could fully relax, she remembered Ranko. She couldn't tell if Ranko was breathing or not. The body felt like dead weight on Akane's back. _Bad choice of words,_ Akane thought hysterically. _Ranma can't be dead!_

Opening burning eyes, Akane saw the growling cat crouched barely ten feet away. The water flowed leisurely around the bend in the river, bringing them slowly closer. Its slit-pupil eyes burned with malevolence. An almost defeated whimper escaped Akane's lips. Forcing Ranko's condition from her mind, Akane began kicking her legs with as much energy as she could muster.  Incrementally, her kicking pushed the log away from the cat. Akane feared that it wouldn't be far enough. As they swept past the cat, Akane braced herself for tearing claws.

Instead, she heard an enraged howl. _They'd escaped_! A new current caught them and the log picked up speed.

Unfortunately, her jubilation was quickly cut short. The Iriomote cat hadn't given up. Instead, it paced them along the left riverbank. Her heart plummeted when two more, even bigger, cats joined it. She wanted to scream with frustration.

Akane needed to stop and check to see if Ranko was breathing. Yet she couldn't land on the left bank as long as the cats threatened. Trembling and burning muscles also warned her that if she didn't stop soon, the cats would be a moot point. Her arms would give out and they'd drown.

The right bank offered no solution either. The steep rock face looked impossible to scale in her condition. No matter where she looked, it seemed hopeless.

Then God took pity on her. The river forked several meters ahead. Firming her lips, Akane kicked them towards the right fork and away from the cats on the bank. It took a moment for her unwieldy log to move, but slowly it drifted to the right. Finally they left the angry cats behind, stuck on the opposite shore.

"We escaped, but you better stay with me, Ranma," Akane pleaded. "I need you."

Both sides of the river had steep, rocky banks. Akane searched desperately for somewhere to stop, but nothing caught her attention. As they passed a new intersection in the river, Akane noticed that the taste of the water became saltier. The briny taste of the river water made her stomach swirl nauseously. Unfortunately, spitting didn't help get rid of the flavor after the first dozen mouthfuls.

Akane began to see intermittent patches of mangrove trees with their stilt-like roots arching above the surface of the water. Brown patterned fish and silvery gray shrimp darted through their multi-forked roots like cars traversing the busy city streets of a metropolis. The current down the river slowed. Roots now blocked her access to the shore.

Finally, a few minutes later, the left bank began to slope down closer to the river and the mangrove trees became scarcer. The current picked up as once again a new river poured in. The bank flattened out at the same time. Calling on her last reserves of strength, Akane kicked them towards the shore.

When her toes first brushed the ground, she thought it wishful thinking. Then both feet touched down and Akane realized that she'd made it. A relieved sob escaped her throat. She pried her stiff fingers from the log and waded forward towards dry land. Akene paid the log sweeping away down river no further heed as she stumbled and crawled up onto the muddy bank. Tufts of yellow-green grass, patches of moss, and bits of rock provided friction for her climb. When her feet finally escaped the river, she let her body collapse. Pressing her cheek against the ground, she breathed in the smell of dust gratefully.

However, Ranko's sodden weight flattened her euphoria. Rolling over onto her side, Akane began prying at the knots holding Ranko to her back. The sashes had swelled with river water, making them difficult to untie. Grimly she forced her tired and bloody fingers to tease apart the strands. Her efforts finally paid off as the knots came loose. Akane moaned at the release of pressure. The tight bands had bit into her flesh, leaving red and purple bruises.

Ranko slid off her back and flopped onto the ground.

Now that the moment of truth had come, Akane felt frozen. She didn't want to look. Almost twenty minutes had passed since they'd both gone underwater. Akane was scared. The fear felt more suffocating than the water that had poured down her throat when she'd almost drown.

Gathering her courage, Akane rolled over and sat up. Ranko's saturated scarlet hair appeared brown against her pale skin. _The color of dried blood_ , Akane thought morbidly. Ranko's chest didn't look like it was moving either.

Reaching out a trembling hand, Akane placed her fingers against Ranko's neck and felt for a pulse. Her torn fingers left clots of blood and mud along Ranko's pallid skin. Not breathing, Akane waited and hoped.

She couldn't feel anything.

The pressure built painfully behind Akane's eyes. A tear escaped, dripping down off her cheek to plop onto the seam of Ranko's chapped lips, disappearing inside. Adjusting her sore fingers, Akane took a shallow breath and pressed harder against Ranko's carotid artery.

_There!_ Akane felt something. _Ranma had a pulse!_ Leaning over Ranko's mouth, Akane felt puffs of air caressing her cheek as the redhead breathed. _Ranma lived!_ Delighted and hysterical laughter poured from Akane's lips as she draped herself over Ranko's body.

Several minutes passed before Akane found the strength to sit back up. Looking around, she saw a shallow cave in the embankment about twenty feet away. It took her three tries to successfully stumble to her feet. Once up, she went over to inspect the cave for animals. She found a few gnawed on bones in the back that looked old, but nothing else to indicate that it housed a predator. The cave itself only went in about seven or eight feet, but it was enough to shelter them for the night.

On the opposite side of the cave entrance trickled a small stream that fed into the river. Akane licked her salt-crusted lips and stepped forward. Despite being soaked, she felt thirsty and wanted to rinse off her face. Kneeling down, she cupped a bit of water in her hands and cautiously sipped.

Although the water had a strangely herbal taste, it wasn't salty or brackish. Relief washed through her body. She'd worry about dangerous bacteria and parasites later. Lying down on her stomach, Akane placed her lips against the trickle and sipped directly from the stream. After drinking her fill, she rinsed salt and mud off her face and arms.

Feeling slightly renewed, Akane got up and went back for Ranko. Hitching the girl up under the arms, Akane dragged Ranko over to the stream. She washed off the salt and mud crusting Ranko's face and eyelashes. Propping Ranko’s head up on her thigh, Akane trickled a handful of water into Ranko’s mouth while massaging her throat. Ranko coughed out the water.

"C'mon Ranma, you need to drink after that salt water or you’ll get sick," Akane ordered. Tilting Ranko's head, she tried again. This time, Ranko swallowed. "That's right, good boy." A weary smile curved Akane's lips. No matter the physical form, she knew Ranma was always a guy on the inside. "Just a little bit more," she coaxed. After a few more handfuls, Ranko turned her head away, but didn't wake. In the bronze light of the setting sun, Akane could see color returning to Ranko's cheeks.

Taking that as a sign that things would work out, Akane decided to take a well-deserved rest. First though, she reached over and wrung as much water as possible from Ranko's clothes. Next she did her best to squeeze out her own. Finally done, she wearily picked up Ranko and dragged her into the cave, resting the girl gently against the wall of reddish-brown stone. Already Ranko's breathing seemed stronger.

Work done, Akane stumbled only a few feet away before letting herself collapse onto the hard ground. Everything ached. If asked, she wouldn't be able to point to a single inch of skin free from stabs, cuts, scrapes, or bruises. Despite the mildly warm temperature, her wet clothes and hair seemed to suck the heat from her body, leaving her chilled. For a second she feared that the pain and discomfort would keep her awake, but weariness proved stronger. Sleep quickly dragged her into oblivion.

 

* * *

Upon first waking, Ranma kept his eyes closed and assessed his surroundings. His clothing felt damp (nothing unusual there) and his limbs free of restraints (more unusual than he'd prefer). The slight headache and strange chemical taste coating his throat suggested that someone had drugged him again. All in all, a familiar scenario.

Listening carefully, he noticed that the sound quality seemed off, not matching anywhere in Nerima or even Tokyo. He heard the rushing of a river, the susurration of leaves in the wind, and the chorusing of insects. He couldn't name the species, but Ranma had slept outside often enough in his life to match the pattern of animal sounds with the hours preceding first light.

To Ranma's right, someone breathed with a slight rasp. It sounded like sleep, but he couldn't be sure. Surreptitiously tensing and relaxing his muscles, Ranma also realized that he'd woken up as a _she_ again.

Slowly opening her eyes, Ranma found herself in a dimly lit cave. Tilting her head to the side allowed her to quietly view the source of the rasping breaths. It took Ranma a moment to identify the bedraggled form curled up on the cave floor as Akane. When she did, Ranma quickly crawled over.

Ranma's eyes couldn't make out much detail in the pre-dawn light, but Akane's body language looked cold and unhappy. Barely seen scratches marred the skin Ranma could see and her clothing looked damp and filthy. Akane was alive, no thanks to Ranma, but nothing else good could be said about her condition.

Ranma's lips tilted down unhappily as she searched the shallow cave for a blanket to cover Akane. The temperature felt like somewhere around sixty-five degrees, but their damp clothing made it seem colder. Unfortunately, Ranma only found dimly lit reddish rocks and packed earth. If the shadows hid anything useful, Ranma couldn't see it. Standing up, Ranma undid her puzzle belt and stripped off her only slightly damp outer shirt to drape over Akane.

Right now it was the best that Ranma could do. As usual, it wasn't anywhere near as good as Akane deserved. Smoothing a few dark strands of hair gently off Akane's forehead, Ranma tucked them behind the delicate shell of her ear before standing up.

Ranma wanted to wake Akane up to find out how they'd gotten here, wherever here was, but Akane looked like she needed sleep more than Ranma needed questions answered. Ranma wasn't going to impress Akane just by sitting around. Shivering in only a dingy white tank top, Ranma tried to brush sand out of her cleavage as she padded quietly out of the cave. Ranma felt filthy, thirsty, and about to pop a leak from the pressure in her bladder.  Time to step up, save the day, and be a hero.


	7. The Importance of Being Useful

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for your reviews! Pronouns are exceedingly difficult to keep straight with Ranma. He thinks like a man, but sometimes has the body of a girl. Bear that in mind as I switch back and forth.

Grimacing at having to pee as a girl, Ranma moved into the fringes of the shadowy jungle. The sun hadn't risen yet, but the wash of light from the horizon hinted that it wouldn't be long. After taking care of business, she went to the river to rinse her hands off and then took a big mouthful of water.

At the salty taste, she promptly spit it back out. "Blech!" Ranma exclaimed loudly before glancing guiltily towards the cave mouth housing Akane. Dead to the world, Akane didn't stir.

Investigating the shore, Ranma found a stream of fresh water trickling near the cave. After waiting for a whip-tailed black lizard with bright yellow racing stripes to scurry back into the jungle, she knelt by the small stream and gulped down several mouthfuls. Ranma decided to follow the stream back to a point where the water became deeper. However, she hadn't gone very far into the jungle before it got too dark. The canopy blocked too much of the predawn light. Scratching her itching stomach, she backtracked a bit until she could better see any approaching threats, like poisonous snakes or kidnapping mercenaries.  _ Besides _ ,  _ I shouldn't get too far away from Akane while she’s sleeping and defenseless. _

Although the stream was little more than a foot deep, Ranma was determined to get her bath. Stripping down, she washed the grittiness off her skin as best she could. By the time she finished, the jungle had gotten lighter. Ranma wrinkled her nose at getting redressed in her filthy clothing, but it couldn't be helped.

As she walked back through the slowly brightening jungle, Ranma noticed several orange fruits hanging from a tree. She recognized them as edible from her training trips with Pops. Plucking an armful only took a moment, as did devouring six of them. The remaining four she bundled into a large, emerald-green palm frond for Akane's breakfast.

Walking, she noticed a spiky green shrub. At the center protruded what looked like a pineapple. Considering Principal Kuno's fetish, Ranma felt pretty confident in her identification. However, a large web, glittering with morning dew, covered most of the bush. A rodent the size of Ranma's hand lay wrapped in one corner of the web. As Ranma deliberated over grabbing the fruit, a swarm of albino baby spiders poured out from beneath the shadows of the leaves to envelop and consume the rodent. Gulping at their multifaceted eyes and chittering jaws, she decided to leave the pineapple alone.

Casting around for more food, Ranma saw the flicker of light brown fish in the stream. Although tempted to catch some for breakfast, but didn't recognize any that she knew for certain were safe to eat. If she'd been by herself, Ranma would’ve eaten them anyways. After all, Akane's cooking had tempered Ranma's cast iron stomach.

However, Ranma wouldn't risk poisoning Akane. Sure, Ranma wanted to avoid hurting Akane, but there was also a bigger reason. If Ranma's cooking poisoned Akane, Ranma would  _ never  _ live it down. Every time Akane cooked something in the future, she'd trot out the incident to guilt him into eating her  _ 'experiments _ .' Ranma was too handsome and talented to die so young. Better to avoid it.

After picking up the hollowed out shell of a gourd from the ground, Ranma rinsed it out a few times before filling it with water for Akane. Looking at the meager offering of water and fruit, she wondered what Akane would think. Feeling dejected at the uselessness of her efforts, Ranma continued walking. Akane would probably bite her tongue and be nice about it unless Ranma provoked her. After all, Akane always took care not to kick a guy when he was down, even when that guy had the body of a girl. 

Reaching the cave, Ranma momentarily forgot her self-pity as the sunrise forced her to pause in admiration. The liquid bronze sphere rose slowly, shimmering triumphantly above the lush green jungle canopy and signally the changing of the guard as nocturnal animals retreated to their dens and daytime predators roused for a day of hunting.  _ Akane would appreciate seeing this _ . Anxious to share, and to examine Akane for injury in the morning light, Ranma ducked into the cave mouth.

Unfortunately, Ranma quickly realized that the cave faced west, leaving Akane's body drenched in shadows. Nevertheless, she took a moment to visually trace what she could see of Akane's body in the dim light. No matter what insults passed Ranma’s lips, he secretly thought that everything about Akane’s body looked pretty much perfect. It certainly felt perfect whenever he had the chance to hold her in his arms as they raced across the rooftops. As Ranma's eyes lingered for a moment on Akane's slightly parted lips, he saw her shiver and tuck her chin beneath the collar of Ranma's borrowed shirt.  _ Was Akane still cold? _

For a moment, Ranma wondered what Akane would do if Ranma curled around Akane’s back to share a little body heat. Biting her lip, Ranma shook her head.  _ Who was he kidding _ ? Ranma didn't have to wonder; she knew exactly what Akane would do. Akane would punch Ranma out into the river, throw the borrowed shirt out after her, and mutter about perverts while suffering in silence. Ranma sighed.

_ That girl has too much pride sometimes _ . Ignoring the Akane-like voice in her head whispering about pots and kettles, Ranma put her meager offerings down near the mouth of the cave. Then, clenching her teeth in dissatisfaction, she decided to sit sentinel in front of the cave until Akane woke up.

Unfortunately, sitting still brought all of Ranma's disappointments bubbling to the surface. They'd not only gotten kidnapped again, but this time Ranma had slept through it all and made Akane rescue them both. Propping her chin on one fist, Ranma sighed gustily.

_ Why leave Akane guessing at his usefulness when he could just prove how much she really didn't need him? _

For months after the last failed wedding, Ranma had been convinced that Akane had only agreed to it out of friendship. A blush stole across Ranma's cheeks as the oft-contemplated picture of how lovely Akane had looked in her western wedding dress sauntered once again into the forefront of his mind. But of course, Akane had only wanted to help him end his curse by getting him the promised water from the spring-of-drowned-boy. Akane liked him, but didn't love him. He'd been almost sure of it.

_ Why would she love him when he couldn't prove his usefulness? _ He'd almost gotten her  _ killed _ for heaven's sake. Ranma wanted Akane, he'd known that for a long time, but since Akane didn't really want him, he'd take what time with her he could get.

In the meantime, he did his best to continue denying and suppressing his feelings for Akane. Since he couldn't have what he really wanted, he let the fiancée and rival whirl go unchecked. To be honest, most of the time he enjoyed the craziness and attention. It was better than moping after Akane.

It was only months later, when he noticed and appreciated Akane trying so hard to control her temper, that Ranma began fixating on how Akane had questioned his words of love at Jusendo. He'd denied saying it, just as he always did when questions of feelings came up, but that exchange had come to torment him.

At the time, Ranma had thought she'd merely wanted to make him vulnerable so she could tease him. They'd always sparred as much with words as with fists. _ But what if he’d answered differently? Would she really have mocked him? Or would she have confessed that she actually loved him too? _

As Ranma angrily watched the river rush past, he thought that feeling this awful as a girl instead of a man just added insult to injury. Several months of careful planning had culminated in this trip to Okinawa, now all spoiled. This was supposed to be his chance to discover Akane's true feelings where no one else could ruin it.

After learning of the Martial Arts Geometry Shrine, Ranma had carefully scrimped and saved for weeks before “accidentally” letting his pops see his stash of money. When Genma had stolen the cash and gone gambling, Ranma had splashed himself with cold water, put on a disguise, and followed. His pops had walked right through the front of the pachinko parlor and into the smaller private room in the back. What happened next wasn't cheating, just keeping Genma's opponents distracted by a flash of cleavage, a plate of steaming pork buns, and a dropped "vintage"  _ Star Wars _ action figure that had really come from a hamburger joint in China.

When Pops had stumbled home smelling of sake and singing show tunes, Ranma had pounced. Waiting until Akane's father walked into the room, Ranma had called upon all his talents of dissembling. He'd picked a fight with his pops and between punches and blocks had demanded that the money be given back before Pops spent it on any more wedding ceremonies. Ranma had made sure to say the word " _ WEDDING _ " extra loud so Soun would pay attention.

Striking a dramatic pose, Ranma had delivered the line he'd been practicing for weeks. "I don't care how  _ romantic _ Okinawa is, I'm going on a training trip alone." When the fathers didn't immediately respond, Ranma's carefully rehearsed speech disappeared and he started babbling. "By myself… without any girlfriends… or fiancées," he finished shrilly. 

If Nabiki and Akane had been around, they would’ve noticed his obviously strange behavior. The fathers, however, remained oblivious to both his acting and his clues. For a moment, Ranma had thought that he'd have to make up something about a magical muskmelon that made people fall in love if they ate it together. Pops passed out before Ranma could figure out how to start his next lie. Luckily, Soun finally caught on. Assuming his angry demon face, Soun demanded that Ranma take Akane with him on the trip to Okinawa. Or else.

After Ranma had cowered away (not as faked as he'd like) and agreed, Soun relieved Genma of his winnings. As Genma's best friend, Soun knew not to trust him with keeping the money. After a token protest, Ranma escaped up to the roof and performed several exultant flips and spins.  _ His plan had worked! _

Not only that, but he'd suavely invited Akane, diverted the other fiancées (since Nabiki could no longer sell them timely tips), and sidetracked his rivals. They'd successfully made it to Okinawa alone, and Akane had almost caused him to spontaneously combust when she'd eaten that juicy peach in the marketplace.

This had been Ranma's best chance to discover if Akane really loved him or if all she felt was friendship and pity. Ranma had finally gathered the courage to talk about  _ feelings _ . No more runaround.

Because if Akane really did love him, if she needed him even a tenth as much as Ranma needed her... he could finally confess to her how utterly lost he'd be without her, how essential she was to his happiness and very sanity. Ranma could finally admit outloud that this bundle of overwhelming emotions all centered on Akane might be what the poets and priests called love.

But instead, he'd merely gotten himself knocked out. From the looks of things, Akane had rescued  _ him _ (or rather  _ her _ at the moment). This just showcased how much Akane  _ didn't _ need him. 

On the one hand, Ranma felt proud of Akane, not that he could tell her that without it coming out wrong and sounding like an insult. He liked knowing that Akane could take care of herself, and him too when he needed it. Such things cemented his adoration of her and kept his hopes alive that she'd one day reciprocate. No matter the cost to herself, she always did her best to help him. Akane had come close to serious injury several times because of it. That quality in her both amazed and terrified Ranma.

On the other hand, Ranma resented the fact that he hadn't gotten to be the hero. Ranma lived for the thrill of the fight. He liked saving the day, liked facing challenges before wresting forth a victory. 

Most especially, he loved the peculiar look in Akane's eyes when he rescued her. Sometimes she'd act grateful, other times berating. No matter her tone of voice, though, Ranma always noticed something special flicker in her gaze. It was a look reserved just for him… he'd jealously checked. When rescued, that mysterious depth in her eyes always appeared to entice the voracious beast hidden deep inside Ranma's soul. One of these days, his control was going to break and he'd do something very primitive where Akane was concerned.

Shaking away such thoughts, Ranma returned to the problem at hand. He could give Akane his fighting ability, his strength and cunning to swoop in and save the day.  _ But if she didn't need that, what could he give her? Why would she want to keep him around? _ The thought of making himself vulnerable by asking Akane that question gave him cold sweats and nausea.

Somehow, Ranma had to make himself useful. If Akane didn't find him useful, she wouldn't want to keep him around for very long, or even at all. She would lose interest and send him away, engagement notwithstanding. Even Akane's father couldn't force her to do something she didn't want to do. She'd proven that over and over. Being forced to leave Akane would break Ranma in ways that would make Ryoga at his worst seem like a ray of sunshine.

Although Ranma loved his parents, they were hard people. From them he'd learned more than just martial arts and manliness. He'd learned that no one would want you if you couldn't give them something, if you couldn't make yourself needed. That lesson had solidified at a very young age. 

His mother hadn't really needed Ranma or Genma around, so she'd let them disappear for years. The only use Ranma’s mother had for him was to be the embodiment of her family honor. She loved him and as long as he didn’t disappoint her, she would approve of him. She liked seeing him, but didn’t  _ need  _ to. However, if his curse ever came out and she learned that Ranma sometimes had a female body, his usefulness to her honor would end. To his mother, better to be dead than useless.

During their travels, Pops only needed people so long as they could give him something, like food or training. As soon as Genma got what he wanted, those people became useless to him. Pops had no compunction about breaking his promises and abandoning people. Ranma had seen the reverse too, where people had traveled with them for a while until getting bored or annoyed. Then they'd be the ones leaving the Saotomes behind.

It had only taken a few years for Ranma to learn to stop getting attached to people and things. He’d mastered that technique, just like so many others. Ranma prided himself on being an expert at enjoying the moment, appreciating people while they were around, and not worrying about the future beyond the Art. He could happily make friends without feeling crippled when they left. Somehow though, Akane had avoided the defenses around his heart dictating,  _ you may go this far but no further _ .

Ranma clearly remembered the day that he’d realized what’d happened. He'd glanced out the window and seen Akane laughing in absolute delight, her head thrown back in abandon as sunlight danced across her face. At that moment, Ranma's breathing froze. Self-preservation slammed his eyes shut and dropped him to a crouch. Retreating inside the fortress of his mind, Ranma had thrown up every defense he had, locked every gate, but it was too late. A bitter laugh had escaped his throat. Akane already resided  _ inside _ the rusty wall protecting his heart. It was too late.

As for Ranma's self-proclaimed fiancées, at least he understood their motivations. They wanted what Ranma could bring them. Shampoo wanted his fighting ability and genes for her tribe, and to redeem her honor after losing to an outsider. Ukyo wanted him as payment for her sacrifices, and to justify her quest for revenge by bringing him back to her family as proof that she was worthy of their respect. Women saw Ranma as something that would elevate their status. To them, he was a trophy to display or some dangerous but tame pet that they could trot out for a thrill now and then. Kodachi in particular fell into the latter category.

Only Akane didn't see him like that. Occasionally she found his fighting ability useful, but she didn't seem to need it. She respected it, but didn't cling to it or to him. That made her unique. It also made her frustrating. In fact, Ranma sometimes thought that if only Akane did cling a little bit, it would make this whole engagement thing a whole lot easier.

Akane could find a lot of men who would love to take over the dojo. She could find even more who would love to take on Akane as a wife.

Although Ranma could find someone else, he didn't want to. He only wanted Akane. And he wanted Akane to want Ranma the same way.

Ranma had to constantly prove his warrior spirit to his father, his manliness to his mother, and his fearlessness to his rivals. He had fought and triumphed against some of the strongest martial artists in the world. But if you took away his martial arts, what was left? Glancing back at the sounds of Akane rousing, Ranma wondered again,  _ What could I give Akane _ ?

Tugging hard on her red braid, Ranma growled and stood up. Ranma usually felt confident and competent. This uneasy emotional rollercoaster totally sucked.

Stepping into the cave, she waited impatiently for Akane's eyelashes to lift. Ranma pasted on a self-assured expression, just in case. Maybe if Ranma pretended hard enough, it would become truth.

A low moan escaped Akane's throat as her eyelids fluttered open and closed. Sitting up slowly, she winced and rubbed at her eyes. Ranma's shirt slipped off her shoulders to puddle over her bare calves. "There's no place like home, eh Toto?" she whispered huskily to herself as she lowered her hands and blinked groggily at the cave wall.

_ Who was Toto?  _ Confused, Ranma crouched down. "You okay, Akane?" The lighting in the cave was just bright enough to make out Akane's facial expressions.

Immediately Akane's eyes jumped up. A wide, relieved smile swept across her face, "Ranma! You're awake!" Reaching forward, Akane squeezed Ranma's hand tightly. "I was so worried when you wouldn't wake up."

Ranma felt her confident mask slip at the further evidence of her uselessness to Akane, but she quickly plastered on a cocky smirk. "Aw, you know nothing keeps me down for long. How 'bout you? Are you hurt?" It took Ranma a moment to realize that her fingers, without conscious direction, had threaded through Akane's into an intimate tangle.

Blushing, Ranma slid her fingers out and stood up. Akane hadn't answered yet, but Ranma felt compelled to break the charged silence. "I brought you some water and fruit," Ranma gestured to the pile. "It's not much, but..." Ranma let her voice trail off.

"Oh," Akane sounded surprised. "Thank you." Looking down, she bunched her hand into the shirt resting over her legs. A small, secretive smile tilted Akane's lips as she continued, "And thanks for lending me your shirt." Standing up with a wince, she handed the shirt back to Ranko and hobbled over to the water.

As Akane took a sip from the gourd, Ranma pulled the shirt back on over her ample chest and tucked it in beneath the puzzle belt. Watching Akane's clumsy movements, Ranma frowned. "Sleeping on a cave floor can stiffen you right up," she commiserated as she pulled her red braid out of the collar of the shirt.

"Um, right," Akane agreed with an uneasy laugh. Not meeting Ranma's eyes, she began to peel one of the orange fruits. An uneasy prickling ran down Ranma's spine.  _ What was Akane hiding? _

"Hey Ranma," Akane began as she looked out of the cave towards the river, "do you-," cutting off abruptly, her eyes got so wide that Ranma could see the reflection of something behind her shoulder silhouetted in the cave entrance.

As Ranma spun around to face the threat, Akane shrieked, "Don't look, Ranma!"

_ What was Akane, stupid? How was he supposed to protect Akane if he didn't face the enemy? _

Of course, a second later Ranma realized exactly why Akane had cried out. She'd realized how useless Ranma was going to be for this. At least fifty vicious looking wildcats surrounded the cave, or maybe a hundred, a thousand!

Ranma didn't have time to notice much beyond the sharp claws, glistening fangs, and bristling fur. Red hair stuck uncomfortably in her eyelashes, but she couldn’t lift her hands to brush it away. Involuntarily a high-pitched whimper escaped her throat. The lead cat stalked forward towards the cave.

_ I must protect Akane! I must-, _ Ranma screamed mentally in a bid to retain control, to be useful.

But it did no good.

Sheer terror swamped Ranma's resolve and pushed away everything but the instinct to flee. Falling backwards in panic, her fingers scrabbled against the dusty floor of the cave as she frantically retreated to the back wall. Yowling filled her ears and echoed through the cave. Ranma's last sight before conscious thought swirled away down the drain of psychosis was of Akane - her skirt swishing above the dimpled backs of her knees as she stepped in front of Ranma's cowering body.


	8. It's a Cat Eat Cat World Out There

 

"Ranma, you idiot, snap out of it!" Akane yelled. Although she knew that shouting at Ranma when she was like this never did any good, a small part of Akane still hoped. Maybe this time, Ranma would realize the danger they were in and be able to resist.

Instead, Ranma cowered at the back of the cave and whimpered. Stepping in front of Ranma with a growl of frustration, Akane felt the orange fruit in her hand start to leak from the force of her grip. The acidic juice stung the cuts on her hands.

Akane could feel Ranma's terrified breath on the backs of her calves. It made her bare skin feel uncomfortably moist and hot. It also reminded her that she wasn't wearing any underwear. "You better not be looking up my skirt, you pervert," she growled.

For a brief, shining moment this morning, Akane had thought that everything was going to be alright. Ranma had woken up and brought her breakfast. The sun was shining. They were free and alive and together. T _hey could conquer anything if they did it together!_

But no, they had to be attacked by a group of savage wildcats. Why cats? Why not wolves or snakes? Even ferocious rabbits! But no, it always had to be cats. And to think, she used to like felines. Akane curled her lip in disgust and adjusted her stance.

A striped cat stalked up to the mouth of the cave with brutal arrogance and pure hatred glittering in its eyes. "I don't care if you're an endangered species or not," she warned. "You attack me, you're gonna go extinct!"

Unfortunately, the cats completely ignored her bravado. Taking a deep breath, Akane let loose a loud battle cry. Birds erupted from the trees like glass from an exploding window. Winding back her arm, Akane threw her orange fruit at the lead cat as hard as she could, pretending it was a baseball and the cat a catcher's mitt. "Batters up!" she shouted as her abused muscles twinged in protest.

The orange fruit hit the cat square in the chest, flinging it up into the air for several seconds before it landed in the river. Akane smiled as it wailed through the air, "Rrreeeaaaaaarrrrrgh-" _SPLASH_. The felines on shore momentarily scattered to escape the shower of water flung up by the impact.

"Strike one," Akane called out with glee. Maybe she should switch from volleyball to baseball. Unfortunately, her triumph proved short lived. The Iriomote cats soon reformed in front of the cave. If possible, they now looked even more angry.

Saliva dripped from exposed fangs as they hissed and advanced. Two cats leaped for the opening of the cave. Akane caught the left one with a punch to the face, knocking it out. The other cat twisted away from her fist and scratched along her leg with sharp claws. Swearing, Akane jerked back and kicked the cat in the side, flinging it out of the cave and into the next three advancing cats. They went down in a chorus of angry yowls. Turning, Akane caught a cat mid-lunge with a sidekick.

Unfortunately she didn't pay attention to where she put down her foot. It landed on the gourd-turned-water-bowl and she tripped. Akane yelped in surprise and horror as she fell flat onto her back. Fur brushed her arm and sunlight flashed off the fangs descending rapidly towards her throat. Akane tried to dodge, but she knew she would be too late. She was dead.

In that moment of despair, a glowing, translucent paw passed across her face with an electric tingle, batting away her adversary with brutal crunch. A second later, her vision filled with red hair and an ample bust as Ranko crouched above Akane’s prone body, looked out of the cave, and roared. Ranma's fear had activated the cat fist!

Shuffling backwards, Akane pulled herself up into a crouch. The redhead's glowing aura had taken on the shape of a huge cat, which Ranko used to mow down the front row of felines like bowling pins. The air filled with hissing and yowling.

Unexpectedly, the assault paused. Picking up another orange fruit as ammunition, Akane stepped forward until she was standing next to Ranma. Something seemed to be happening within the group of cats. They were bunching up tightly and writhing in a circle, over and under each other like snakes in a brood-ball. Soon it became difficult to estimate how many cats made up the squirming mass.

One of the larger male cats stepped forward just in front of the group. His brown striped fur was frosted with silver and the dark, crown-like markings on his face made him look regal. Although clearly one of the oldest cats, he still looked sleekly muscled and dangerous.

The air above the writhing cats started to shimmer, like the mirages created by hot pavement in the summer. Then the undulating air solidified into a large, translucent Iriomote cat. Akane's jaw dropped. Blue-white light bubbled and dripped from its fur, disappearing before it hit the writhing cats below. It looked like the Iriomote cats had combined all of their ki into a single, monstrous entity!

Like Akane, the feline Ranma had been watching the cats suspiciously. When she saw the glowing cat form, she jumped from the cave and immediately attacked. The glowing Iriomote cat met Ranma’s aura in midair and the two bit and clawed at each other.

Unable to stay airborne, Ranma touched down on the ground for a bare moment before jumping back at her opponent. Several times, Ranma tried to swerve and attack the normal cats directly, but always the ki cat intervened. Frustrated, Ranma returned to focusing on her large opponent. For several minutes they clashed without either side striking a decisive blow. Slowly, however, Ranma's superior fighting ability began to shine through. She landed hit after hit.

Then a strange thing happened. The ki cat paused and settled to the ground directly over the silvered cat. The elder cat began to glow with an eldritch fire as the large cat became more transparent. Regally raising its head, the cat meowed demandingly at Ranma.

Surprised, Akane saw Ranko stop attacking. After glancing back to check on Akane, Ranko settled into a wary crouch and meowed back fiercely. The elder responded with a spate of meows, growls, and yowls.

_Since when could Ranma talk to cats?_ Out of everyone in Ranma's life, Akane considered herself to be the person who'd seen Ranma in the cat fist most often (excepting Genma, of course, who'd created the problem in the first place, the bastard). Yet she’d never seen him do something like this. Then again, she'd never seen a group of cats create a spirit form the size of a car either.

* * *

 

Ranma did not like these cats. They had scared and wounded her favorite person, making her person produce many not-good scents. Today, Ranma would not play with her enemies. After Ranma won, she would rip the flesh from their bones and let her person put it on the wood-that-turns-orange-and-hot to eat. Bloody meat tasted better, but her person was silly and yelled much when given food that still dripped. Ranma would punish theses cats quickly. Then they would eat a few of the plump ones. After that, her person would become strong, produce good scents, and give Ranma many good scratchies.

Unfortunately, the big glowing cat could not be eaten. Probably. When it died, Ranma would take a bite and see. So far it was hard to kill, but Ranma would get it soon.

The old cat spoke, "How can a cat protect the demon-enemy? She needs to die?"

Ranma narrowed her eyes and glanced quickly back at her person, but didn't see anything strange. Turning back, she tossed her head arrogantly. "Old geezer, I protect my person, not any demon-enemy. She is my future mate! Touch her and I'll kill you... and sh** on your corpse."

"Insolent kitten!" the older cat spat. "She’s possessed by the ancient enemy. We sense the demon in her. We know. Better to kill her now than have her birth a new litter of foes."

"She is not possessed. I would know!" Ranma stalked forward. "Stupid old cat, she will only birth my kittens, not any demon's!"

At first, the older cat's ears twitched angrily. However, by the time Ranma finished, he looked a bit confused. "You are both female, she cannot have your kittens."

Ranma snorted and stuck her nose in the air. "I am female now, will be male later. Then we will mate. Our kittens will be strong: too strong for you, too strong for demon. _You_ are confused."

"And you are a crazy-idiot cat, but facts don't change. Her energy tastes of rat demon!" snarled the elder. "We have fought the ancient enemy for many seasons. Long ago, magic trapped the last rat demon in a cave on our island. We guarded it. But now we are few and the demon has escaped." He lowered his muzzle to the ground and glared at Ranma. "That human is evil now. We can taste it."

"And I say you lie," Ranma responded flatly. "But," Ranma sighed irritably, "what does rat demon taste like? I will check and prove you wrong. Then you will go away… or I will kill you."

Huffing at Ranma's insolence, the elder cat stalked forward. "I will touch your ki and show you the taste. Pay attention." With that warning, the cat touched his forehead to Ranma's. The knowledge stretched from one cat to the other like soft taffy, until finally it twisted into Ranma's own aura. As soon as possible, Ranma broke contact. Even with their temporary truce, Ranma didn’t trust the old geezer. Ranma knew how easily old ones could lie. Refusing to turn her back, she warily returned to her person's side.

While they had talked, Ranma’s person had eaten an orange fruit. Ranma could smell it on her. Giving the waiting cats one last contemptuous glance, Ranma rubbed her chin back and forth against her person's shoulder. Then she licked the sluggishly bleeding claw marks on her person's leg.

At this, her person started making loud, unhappy noises. Ranma didn't pay attention. Beneath the delicate sweetness of the blood coating her tongue lurked a strangely sour flavor, something like… rat demon. This was bad. Very bad.

Ignoring the hands pushing her away, Ranma licked her person's leg again, rasping her tongue hard against the wound several times to get a better taste. The hurt sounds her person made caused Ranma to flinch, but she didn't stop until she was satisfied. Crawling on top of her person to stop the squirming, Ranma trapped her person's arms with her hind legs. Then she put her paws on her person's shoulders and forced her to lie flat.

Crouching nose to nose, Ranma stared down into her person's eyes. The blood still tasted wrong, but it was very faint. Her person couldn't be possessed. Ranma would not allow it. If she was… then Ranma would somehow fix it.

A questioning meow escaped Ranma's bloody lips as she searched those brown eyes for demon taint. “ _Does our person house a demon?”_ Ranma asked, jerking the cord of ki stretched between their bodies.

Something feline swam up into her person’s deep brown eyes and took control. Ranma recognized it. "No," meowed the answer from her person's mouth, "it marked her, but she escaped. She's not possessed."

Elated, Ranma bounded off her person and spun to face the other cats. "You heard. She's not!" Ranma yowled.

"So she says, but she’s still demon marked," grumbled the elder cat.

"Then I will kill the demon and she will be free," responded Ranma arrogantly.

"It is a dangerous hunt, but…" the older cat paused and gave Ranma an assessing look, "if you pledge to kill the demon-enemy for us, we will let her live."

Ranma scratched her ear nonchalantly. "I will pledge to kill the demon-enemy for _her_ , and if you leave now, I will let _you_ live."

The elder cat snorted, but agreed.

* * *

 

Akane felt very confused. She had a killer headache, too. A bloodthirsty Ranko had pinned her down and stared into her eyes, then everything had flipped and gotten foggy. Time had skipped. The next thing she knew, Akane found herself sitting up watching Rankp and the silvery cat sniff each other's butts in friendship.

The radiance around the silvered cat rose into the air and passed over into Ranma. Then the glow disappeared. A second later, the old cat turned and ran into the grouped felines, scattering them like billiard balls sent spinning down into pockets of jungle shadow. Only Ranma remained behind.

Looking at the deserted shoreline, Akane decided not to question it. She couldn't take more bad news right now. "Ranma, are you still sane?" Akane bit her lip. The question had slipped out before she could stop it.

Ranko tilted her head inquisitively, sending her red braid sliding over her shoulder. "Meow?" Then her head snapped to the side and she pounced down the shore after a whip-tailed lizard.

_Nevermind, she's as sane as Ranma ever is._ "Well, that was fun," Akane stood up and dusted herself off before walking over to Ranma, "but maybe we can try to stay out of trouble at least until lunch, 'kay?"

Only a moment later, a boat full of large, angry-looking men came around the bend in the river. "Hands on your heads, NOW!" ordered the man in the prow.

_Next time,_ Akane slowly raised her hands, _I'm keeping my big mouth shut._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Why yes, there was a shout-out/almost-quote from the martial arts figure skating story line. Did you catch it? Lol. Please let me know your thoughts on this one. Thanks!


	9. Freeing Princess

 

Turns out, the bad guys in the boat were really the good guys. They’d even brought a second boat to hold everyone who’d gotten kidnapped. "Here's some painkillers and water," said Akane's new best friend. They may have only just met, but with an offering like that, he'd earned her eternal affection. Swallowing the last of her onigiri, Akane smiled. "If you weren't a monk, I'd kiss you."

"Just because I'm a monk, doesn't mean I'd turn you down," he replied with a saucy wink. Leaning forward, he placed his hand on the bench next to her thigh. A split second later, Ranko flopped over Akane's lap and snapped her teeth inches from the monk's hand.

He jumped back with the agility of a martial artist. "She's a possessive little thing, isn't she?" the monk asked cheerfully.

"Off," Akane shoved Ranko onto the floor of the boat. Growling grumpily, Ranko grabbed another onigiri from the open container and flopped over Akane's feet to eat it.

"So let me get this straight," Akane ignored her new footwear, "you guys are the brother temple for martial arts geometry?"

The monk nodded his head. "Yep, we're just down the mountain from the women's temple. We have monthly tournaments with them, which is how we noticed so quickly that something was wrong. When no one showed up and then our messengers returned without any bruises, we figured they'd been taken. Luckily we were able to track them to Iriomote island. It’s just bad luck that you got caught up in the kidnapping on the day you decided to visit," he sent her a commiserating smile. "All we can figure from the gossip is that the kidnappers are somehow affiliated with one of the Okinawan independence movements. We’re not sure why, though. Those ladies are mathematical martial goddesses, but they’re not interested or skilled in giving physical affection. If someone thinks to make them concubines, they’re in for a very rude and painful awakening."

Akane knocked back the painkillers and took a sip of her water. "I heard a couple of the soldiers talking while we escaped." She hesitated for a moment before continuing, "They said their captain made a pact with a demon."

The monk sucked in his breath and traced a warding symbol with his hand. "A demon… are you sure?"

An frown twisted Akane's lips. "That’s what they said. The leader of their group recently changed his title to  _ prophet _ . It made me wonder if he wanted us women as some sort of demon sacrifice."

Her escort's face became grim. "I better make sure the rest of my brothers are prepared. Thanks for the warning." Standing up, he made his way to the front of the boat. "Oh," he spoke over his shoulder, "sorry you have to loop back to the fortress to help us rescue the other women."

"No problem," Akane lied. The monk’s words sparked a memory in Akane's mind. Closing her eyes, she flashed back to when she'd run into Miaka at the train station.

_ "Don't go. The purple cloud harvests for the rat that devours purity. Better impure than to conceive the string of pearls!" Miaka’s voice sounded intense, quiet, and piercingly pure of tone.  Akane wanted to step back from the stifling cocoon isolating the two of them from the hazy crowd, but couldn't. Miaka's eyes held her fast. _

_ Flipping over Akane’s hand, Miaka’s fingernail stabbed into the center of Akane’s palm and began drawing circles, over and over until blood rose to the surface. "For the mother, looping is the only hope. You've already looped back. Accept the loop between, remember to loop forward." Yanking Akane against her chest, Miaka hissed hotly into her ear, "Better to avoid it!" _

A shudder racked Akane's frame.  _ Had that been a prophecy? One she'd stupidly and arrogantly ignored? _ The gas at the temple had looked like a purple cloud. Akane hadn't seen any rats though. Maybe she was being paranoid.

However, Miaka had mentioned the string of pearls. Akane began to chew on one of her few remaining fingernails. Looked at the right way, you could say that she'd "conceived" or brought those evil pearls to life. After all, the pearls hadn't appeared and started pulling at her mind until that glistening black string had fallen out of the broken box and into a puddle of her blood.  _ Did that make her the mother Miaka had mentioned? But the mother of who or what? And if "looping" was Akane’s only hope, did she need to return somewhere? Or tie herself to something or someone? _ Heart pounding, Akane ground the palms of her hands against her aching eyes.  _ Why did the warning have to be so vague?  _

Akane wanted to believe that she was simply loopy in the crazy sense for even believing in prophecy, but too many things about Miaka's words made sense. Besides, Miaka did come from a shrine family with reputed spiritual powers. Sighing, Akane wondered if looping back to the place of her imprisonment was the solution to the riddle. It didn't feel right, but then again, she didn't have any other choice.

When she opened her eyes, Akane found Ranko staring up at her with a steady yet concerned gaze. "At least I've got you, Ranma," Akane whispered quietly, feeling herself slowly calming down. Taking a deep breath, she leaned back against the side of the boat and tried to conserve her strength for the fight ahead. Except for needing directions for which fork to take when the river branched, the monks left her alone to rest.

Beaching the boats out of sight from the compound, they snuck up the rest of the way on foot. They stopped at the edge of the jungle overlooking the building. The monks discussed the building's layout in low voices, trying to come up with a good assault plan. Guards were noted as well as windows and doors.

Ranko prowled around, restless. She paced to Akane, stood by her side for a minute, and then stalked off into the underbrush. Afraid that Ranko would be missing when they finally decided to attack, Akane snagged her on the next pass and forced her to hold still.

As the monks debated the best way to sneak in, Akane found herself slowly carding her fingers through Ranko's bangs and over the top of her head. The strands of red hair felt surprisingly soft as they slipped through Akane's fingers. Heat radiated from Ranko's head, sending soothing warmth through the pads of Akane's fingers. The redhead sitting sentinel by Akane's side gave a quiet sigh and leaned her cheek against Akane's thigh. The repetitive motion seemed to soothe them both.

"Soon," Akane promised. Until Akane could find some hot water, Ranko was stuck with the mentality of a cat. Ranma never remembered what he did in the cat fist. Akane knew he hated that.

Bringing her hands up to her face, Akane rubbed at her eyes and then tucked her hair behind her ears. Without any distractions, Akane found it difficult to ignore her throbbing head and stinging side. Her cheeks felt unusually hot under her cool fingers as well.

One group of monks seemed to advocate waiting for the concealment of full darkness to attack. The other group didn't want to wait. They felt that the urgency of rescuing their colleagues called for immediate assault, even with the sun high in the sky. After all, who knew what might be happening to the female monks inside those walls?

Wrapped up in their plans, no one but Ranko seemed to notice Akane's increasingly pale and sweating face. Rubbing her temple, Akane leaned more heavily against the tree bracing her body. She didn't have the energy to respond to Ranko's soft, plaintive noises.

Looking at the outside of the fortress made Akane remember being inside it. She didn't want to think about what had almost happened in that place. Akane did not want to go back in there.

Ranko had been confused ever since she woke up as a cat. Her person smelled hurt and driving away those other cats hadn't seemed to fix much of anything. Now all of these strange males just sat around making stupid noises and not doing anything. There was no playing or yummy food here. She didn't like it. Plus, her person's scent and posture kept getting more and more bad. The strange men and her person wanted to hunt in the big shelter place. That had to be the source of the bad thing upsetting her person. This was not acceptable. She would destroy the bad thing and then her person would smell good again.

Akane jolted out of her thoughts when Ranko jumped up. Astonished, Akane watched as the girl roared and charged at the building. "Ranma!" she cried, feeling her adrenalin surge, but the running figure didn't turn.  _ Well, there goes our surprise, _ Akane thought numbly.

When Ranko was about ten feet away from the building, she lifted her hand and clawed at the air. The wooden walls shredded into curls and slivers. In the silence, broken only by a few crashes and booms as pieces of the ceiling and walls near the hole cracked and collapsed, a large hole formed. Ranko stalked on all fours into the new entrance. A second later, they heard an angry yowl and a man's scream, abruptly cut off.

Galvanized, the monks broke out of their stupor and charged into the building. Akane, who had already started running after Ranko, ended up leading the charge. Inside the entrance Ranko had created was a dinning hall with tables and chairs stacked against the walls. A large rectangular black banner hung above the hearth. In the center of the black flag, a snarling purple rat clawed at an invisible enemy. Gold and purple twined ropes bordered the cloth and hung down in tassels on each side.

Akane only had time to notice the flag and the absence of Ranko before soldiers rushed in from a hall on the right. Kicking the first man to reach her, she quickly became consumed in the chaos of battle. It reminded her of the morning fights in high school, with hoards of boys attacking because they wanted to date her. Although these guys were bulkier and older, they still fell just as hard as the younger boys.

The next time Akane found time to take a breath and look around, she saw that the room had become a mess of struggling male figures. The fight had gotten her blood flowing and given her a second wind. No one seemed to be winning, but she knew that would quickly change if reinforcements arrived. Ranko was nowhere to be seen.

Noticing another hallway opposite from where the soldiers had entered, Akane decided to find Ranko and the other women while everyone else was distracted. Taking a deep breath, Akane pushed her physical aches once more to the back of her mind and entered the fray. It only took a few moments to kick and punch her way into the deserted hallway.

_ Not quite deserted _ , Akane realized. Down the corridor she saw several lumps on the ground that turned out to be clawed and unconscious soldiers. The sight of their mauled bodies filled her with relief. Cat fist Ranko had come this way.

As Akane moved down the hallway, she began throwing open doors. The second room held a kitchen. A quick glance around revealed neither Ranma nor enemy soldiers. However, it did have a sink, a stove, and a teakettle.

Feeling as if something was finally going her way, Akane cranked open the hot water tap. Only cool water came out. Impatient, Akane gave up after thirty seconds. Grabbing the kettle, Akane filled it half-full, put it on the stove, and turned the burner to high. Her optimism surged. Maybe she'd avoid the necklace all together too.

Now she just needed to splash Ranko. Turning Ranko back into a man should also break the cat fist. Then Akane could let Ranma finish decimating the castle, content in the knowledge that he wouldn't do anything unexpectedly stupid as a human (she didn't know the full depths of his stupidity as a cat, though he could be quite stupid as both), while she took it easy on her injured side and thumped on random stragglers. Happy with her plan, Akane took a breather in the kitchen while the water boiled.

A muffled  _ yowl _ caused Akane to spin around. Her fists rose. Scanning the room, she looked for the source. Another yowl sounded. Akane traced it to the pantry door. Standing to the side, Akane grabbed the doorknob and flung it open, ready for a fight.

When nothing came rushing out, Akane peered into the closet. On the floor sat a wooden cage holding an Iriomote cat. Its eyes momentarily reflected red as it glared at her. Blinking, it tilted its head and the effect disappeared, revealing yellow irises. A delicate circlet of white fur curved around its forehead before coming to a point above its moist pink nose. The pattern reminded Akane of a tiara worn by a princess.

In stark contrast to the delicate white markings, half of its left ear had been ripped off. Scarred claw marks ran below the ear and down the side of its face. Although only the size of a house cat and having a tiara of white fur, the cat looked vicious. After her experience by the cave, Akane knew better than to treat it lightly.

Nevertheless, she hated seeing anything caged, especially after her recent confinement in this place. "What are you doing locked up in a kitchen closet?" Akane asked softly. The scarred cat met her eyes and hissed, revealing yellowed fangs.

Moving forward slowly, she continued to talk soothingly. "Now, now, Princess, I've just saved you from being the secret ingredient in tonight's stew. Don't be prissy. Your Auntie Akane is here to rescue you, so just settle down, keep your claws and fangs to yourself, and everything will be fine."

The cat, now dubbed  _ 'Princess _ ,' hissed louder as Akane paced closer, its eyes locking intently onto her neck. "No need to get feisty." Akane tried not to let her nervousness show as she grabbed a key hanging from a hook on the wall. Open bags of white rice leaned precariously against the back of the cage's wooden slats and shiny boxes of cooking spices crowded the shelves above. "I met a bunch of your friends out by the river. I'm sure they miss you."

Crouching down, she inserted the key into the lock. It easily clicked open. Princess yowled. "We're all friends now, so just calm down and I'll have you free in a moment." The lock fell to the floor with a clatter. Taking an unsteady breath, Akane tried one last time to soothe the bristling cat. "You owe me for letting you out, so remember to play nice."

Pulling up the cage's latch, Akane scrambled backwards until she hit the warm stove. The cage door swung open. Princess didn't hesitate for a moment, leaping out quickly. Quirking her lips, Akane realized Princess was a  _ he  _ and not a she based on the… equipment.

Hesitating in the doorway of the closet, Princess fixed Akane with a gimlet eye. He didn't look very grateful. Reaching to the side, Akane picked up the kettle of steaming water off the stove. "If you try to attack me," she threatened, "I will splash you with this hot water and it will  _ hurt _ ."

Princess cocked his head to the side as if he understood, but didn’t care. The cat dropped his jaw open and gave Akane an evil cat grin. He crouched, powerful muscles bunching in preparation for a leap in her direction.

"Don't," Akane warned. A feline yowl came from the hallway. Firming her lips, Akane carefully splashed a line of steaming water across the floor as a deterrent. She made sure not to actually hit Princess. After all, she wanted him to retreat, not to piss him off. Princess took a wary step back, but narrowed his eyes. Akane splashed more hot water at the cat.

At that exact moment, Ranko came barreling into the room and ran straight into the stream of hot water. Maybe Ranko had come looking for Akane or heard the other cat's howling. Or perhaps the curse was such that it pulled Ranma towards any falling water in a fifty-foot radius like metal filings to a magnet. 

Whatever the case, Akane watched with a curious lack of surprise as Ranma morphed back into a man. Black hair replaced red as his chest flattened and his limbs grew longer. Ranma’s flailing leg knocked into Princess and punted her across the room. The teapot dangled from Akane's left hand, momentarily forgotten.

Blinking rapidly, human consciousness snapped back into Ranma's eyes. "Um, Akane?" he mumbled as he pushed dripping black hair off his now masculine features. "What's going," he swept his gaze around the kitchen, "on-n-n-N CAT!"

Ranma backpedaled into the hall with a flail and disappeared out of sight. Looking vengeful, Princess streaked into the hallway after him with a hiss. Left alone in the kitchen holding an empty teakettle, Akane could only slap a hand over her face and sigh. _ This is my life. _ For a second she thought the frustration of it all might bring her to tears. Instead, she surprised herself with a snorting giggle.

"Oh, Ranma," she laughed as she turned off the stove and replaced the kettle.

Smiling fondly, Akane left the kitchen and restarted her search for the pigtailed martial artist and the female prisoners. Around the corner she could still hear the sounds of fighting. Akane systematically opened each door in the hallway.

About halfway down the hall she hit the jackpot. Inside the room rested a large steel cage containing about twelve women. "Let us out, quick!" a woman in the front demanded. She looked to be in her forties and the oldest of those kidnapped.

A bulbous steel padlock secured the cage doors. Examining the lock, Akane noticed rust pitting the back and numerous scratches scouring the metal around the keyhole. It had obviously seen a lot of use.

"Do you know where the key is?" Akane asked as she looked around the room. Unfortunately, no convenient key rings hung off a hook on the wall. 

“The guards kept the keys on their belts, not the wall,” the older monk volunteered. 

Akane was going to have to do this the hard way. Hoping the rust was a sign of weakness in the metal, Akane planted her feet and pulled on the lock as hard as she could. She could feel veins bulging in her neck and her face going red. From inside the cage the captive women called out encouragements. The lock creaked in her hands, but refused to give. Black spots swam into Akane's vision. She began to feel dizzy and nauseous. The lock was too strong to break. Cursing, she had to give up and sit down before she passed out.

"I'm going to have to go and find a guard with the key." The hopeful expressions on their faces fell. "I'll be back," Akane vowed. Briefly clasping the older woman's hand through the bars of the cage, Akane ran back out into the hallway and began searching the unconscious bodies.

 


	10. Concerning Need & Serious Intentions

 

Clots of fighting monks and soldiers began spilling into the hallway like refuse down a storm drain, occasionally banging into Akane as she searched for the keys. On the other side of the monks she saw more black and purple clad soldiers running in from the opposite direction. She needed to hurry.

Dodging a fist, Akane knocked out her attacker with an uppercut and moved farther down the corridor.  The next two unconscious soldiers didn’t have any keys either.  As she frantically searched another body, Akane began to hear shrieks and a masculine yowl coming from around the corner.

A wave of relief surged through Akane’s body, causing her to sway for a moment.  That had to be Ranma. Akane just hoped the pigtailed boy’s animal instincts didn’t betray him into doing something stupid.  Or at least not any stupider than Ranma could usually be.

Finally, she spotted the brassy sheen of a ring of keys.  They hung on the belt of a stocky man sprawled on the ground at the end of the corridor. She hadn’t noticed him before because a large, pewter statue of a crouching rat obscured his body.

Five parallel cuts sliced down his chin, across his chest, and over his pudgy belly: Ranma’s work. Akane grabbed the key ring and yanked, but he’d strung the steel ring on his leather belt and nestled it between two thick belt loops for extra security.  It wouldn’t budge.

Grimacing, Akane crouched down and began unbuckling the man’s belt.  The leather was slippery with the blood seeping from his belly wounds.  In her efforts to rush, she fumbled and accidentally pressed down against one of his slashes. The soldier jolted.  His eyes popped open, rolling wildly, as he jerked away violently with a strangled gasp. 

Akane flinched back in surprise. As she recoiled, one of his hands struck out and knocked into her shoulder, flinging her back hard into the decorative statue.  Her wounded side ricocheted off the solid leg of the pewter rat.

Sound ceased to have meaning. Agony burrowed up and down her body like acidic worms. Akane’s face contorted in pain. All she could do was writhe in anguish on the floor.  Her paralyzed lungs refused to breathe. It seemed to go on forever.

Finally, the pain diminished enough to allow Akane to catch her breath. Sweet oxygen flooded her lungs. Taking several sobbing breaths, she wrapped one arm around her wounded side and pushed herself off the ground to rest against the wall. Salty sweat trickled into her mouth and stung her tearing eyes.  She could feel warm blood seeping against her fingers, and knew the cut had reopened and was bleeding through the bandage.

Down the corridor, she saw the man with the keys gaining speed as he moved farther and farther away. Swallowing down another sob, Akane pushed herself to her feet and swayed drunkenly. She didn’t think she’d be able to catch him before he disappeared into a room down the hallway.  But those women in the cage needed her to get those keys. Digging deep, she found the discipline to mentally push down the pain and take a step forward.

“Ranma,” Akane called weakly. Coughing, she began a stumbling jog after the clawed-up soldier.

“Ranma!” she yelled more strongly.  “I need you!”

Akane was slowly gaining on the wounded soldier, hampered himself by the cuts crisscrossing his torso, but she was still fifteen feet away when he careened around the corner in front of her and disappeared.  She was going to lose him!  Skidding around the corner, Akane was forced to catch herself on the wall to keep from tripping. 

Suddenly, something blurred out of a doorway and pounced on the fleeing man’s back.  The soldier crashed forward onto the ground with a terrified shriek.  The blur sliding off his back resolved itself into Ranma.  Growling, Ranma took the nape of the man’s neck between his teeth and gave him a hard shake.  The soldier gurgled and went limp. When Ranma dragged him over and laid him at Akane’s feet, the man was once again unconscious.  Hopefully this time, he’d stay that way.

“Good job, Ranma,” Akane praised as she half-sat, half-fell down to kneel by the soldier’s side in the middle of the corridor.  For a second she just let herself rest in dazed relief.

Purring, Ranma pranced over and gently stropped his body affectionately against Akane’s good side. Then he leaned into Akane’s body. Sighing, she let her fingers trail down the outside of Ranma’s forearm. Ranma’s purring increased in volume as he allowed more weight to settle against her body. Then he reached up unexpectedly and licked the side of Akane’s face, catching part of her chapped lips with his moist, pink tongue. 

Akane gasped and snapped out of her daze, but not soon enough to prevent Ranma from giving her a second, tender lick.  A tingling sensation oozed down her spine at the slow scrape of Ranma’s hot tongue as it glided along the side of her chin, catching slightly on her top lip as he licked across the corner of her open mouth, before continuing on up her blushing cheek. Akane’s eyelashes fluttered shut for a moment as Ranma’s mouth ghosted across her cheekbone to nuzzle against her temple, the rasp of his facial stubble contrasting with the velvety softness of his lips, the warmth of his breath emphasizing the wet path taken by his tongue.

“Hey now,” Akane protested, but without any of the angry heat she’d intended. Instead, her voice came out low and husky, “none of that.”

_I’m just tired_ , she told herself. And then, somehow, Akane’s forceful shove changed between her mind and her fingertips into a gentle caress that slowly pushed Ranma’s face away, allowing her to drag her thumb along the shadowy stubble edging his jaw. Ranma sat back leisurely, tilted his head, and blinked slowly at Akane, momentarily veiling those intense blue eyes with a sweep of his long black lashes.  Akane gave a shuddering sigh.

“One of these days,” she told him softly, “you’re going to do that as a human, and then we’ll have a serious talk about your intentions towards me.” Fingering her lips, she breathed, “Please have serious intentions.”

Shaking her head sharply, Akane turned to the soldier in front of her and yanked his belt open with a grimace. She then ripped it out of his pants.  In the quiet of the hallway, the friction of leather against leather sounded like a hissing snake.  A moment later, the metal key ring slithered free and fell to the floor with a clatter.  Firming her lips, Akane leaned over and picked them up.  The metal felt cold and heavy in her hands.

Successfully getting the keys gave Akane a second wind, _or was it fourth or fifth by now?_   It only took her a moment to stagger back to her feet.  Then, with Ranma alertly prowling ahead and behind, she made her way back to the captives to unlock their cage.

Rounding the last corner, Akane saw a strange-looking man rushing towards them.  His body seemed contorted as he ran on the tips of his toes and the knuckles of one hand. The other arm cradled clutched an ornate black velvet jewelry case studded with gold filigree and amethysts. It was beautiful, and Akane had trouble tearing her eyes away to continue evaluating their new foe.

The man’s posture echoed the way Ranma ran in the catfist, but his proportions seemed off - his legs shorter and his joints strangely distended. For a few moments his neck stayed craned over his shoulder, as if watching for pursuit. He hadn’t noticed them yet. 

Ranma’s vicious hiss changed that.

Shocked by the ferocity of the sound, harsher than she’d _ever_ heard Ranma sound as a cat, Akane stumbled. Throwing out a hand, she barely caught her balance on the wall before falling on her face.  Unsure of what Ranma saw that she didn’t, Akane waited several feet behind her bristling fiancé and catalogued the scene.  There had to be a reason Ranma sounded like that.  Until she figured it out, she would hang back.

When Ranma hissed, the other man whipped around with feral yellow eyes and hissed back. Akane jumped when she saw that his pupils were slit like a cat’s, with a matching elongated jaw full of sharp teeth perfect for biting and rending. Elongated and tufted ears sat on either side of his scarred face.

Akane had seen a lot of strange creatures in the last few years, but something about this man screamed _wrongness_. It was as if a child had tried to melt together a toy soldier and a cat, and then given up halfway - leaving behind strange bulges of flesh like dribbles of candle wax on the exposed skin. This is what she might have expected from some of the scarier legends of the catfist warrior if she’d never seen Ranma. It gave Akane chills. The look in the man’s eyes wasn’t sane either, as if the process had broken something in the mind of both man and cat.

Nevertheless, something seemed to be driving him.  Barely slowing, the cat-man reared up and sent a claw-shaped ki attack down the hallway with a feline yowl. Akane bent her knees belatedly to swerve out of the way, but the attack was surprisingly weak. It luckily only travelled a few feet down the hallway. 

Easily dodging, Ranma leapt forward and attacked. The weakness of the ki attack made him overconfident, as he managed to land only a glancing blow down the cat-man’s side when his fleet foe nimbly twisted away. Almost missing threw off Ranma’s balance, leaving him momentarily vulnerable. It was enough. The retaliatory spin-kick landed hard, sending Ranma arching backwards through the air to slam through the wall next to the kitchen with a ferocious crash. 

As the dust settled, Akane heard the squeal of abused metal.  A split second later, the pipe above the new hole in the wall burst, releasing a shower of water. _Of course it would be water_ , Akane thought sardonically.

Silently Akane took a step forward in preparation to attacking the cat-man while his back was turned. However, she had hesitated too long in watching the pipes, and her moment of surprise was lost.  The cat-man swung around and met her eyes.

Then a strange thing happened.  He paused and tilted his head to the side as if listening to someone. Their eyes locked. At that moment, the cat-man’s eyes softened, became almost worshipful. The hand clutching the ornate jewelry box to his chest loosened.  Holding the box out flat on one hand, he offered it to Akane. 

Panic froze Akane’s breath.  She suddenly wanted to take the jewelry box, to open it. It was a familiar feeling. She could guess at what the jewelry box contained, and that terrified her. Artificial peace wafted from the box like perfume and tried to drown her fears.

Resisting the flood of demon magic, for that is what it had to be, Akane envisioned herself as a tree.  She pictured her feet rooting deep down into the floor of the hallway. A tree cared nothing for jewelry boxes or necklaces. As a tree, no matter how the streams of magically induced trust tugged at her limbs, she could not move forward and take the box.

Unfortunately, the cat-man was not pretending to be a tree, and therefore could move as much as he liked.  He padded closer to Akane and lifted the box higher. Her fingertips tingled with the urge to take it.

Then from the kitchen came the sound of feminine swearing. “I dunno what’s goin’ on, but someone’s gonna suffer for it!” shouted Ranko. “And where the hell is Akane?” the redhead demanded angrily as she emerged from the rubble of the kitchen.

[To be continued]

AN: So originally, Ranma never got to be a boy in this chapter and there was no yummy licking.  But then _Rebel Sage_ and a few others kept expressing concern in reviews about the lack of male Ranma getting any romantic moments with Akane, which I started to stew over.  My male Ranma muse then started projecting citrusy scenes into my head that had no relation to the current plot as I tried to fall asleep.  Thus, we reached this little compromise so I could get some sleep.  He also got a steamy, steamy, STEAMY future chapter in Akane's room that you’ll get to read eventually too, when we get to that point in the plot.  Well, I think it’s gonna be steamy, but then again I have the full color picture streaming through my head.  I’ll be interested in your opinions when we get there (Indygodusk chortles to herself).


	11. Broken windows and female monks

Right as Ranko burst into the hallway, Akane saw Princess, the Iriomote cat she had rescued, come racing down the hall with his yellow eyes fixed on the cat-man.  Ranko and Princess barreled into each other and tumbled to the floor in a wild tangle of limbs.

Growling in annoyance, the cat-man snatched the glittering jewelry box back to his chest and grabbed at Akane’s wrist with the other. He then tried to jerk her into the nearest open room. Akane’s body twitched with the force of his pull, but she kept her feet rooted to the floor. The more he tugged, the less trouble she had resisting the magically induced feelings of trust.

Nevertheless, she was injured and weak.  Muscles trembling, she felt her feet start to slide along the floor.   Several seconds later, her body had moved halfway through the doorway.  Abandoning her tree metaphor, Akane used her free hand to grab tightly onto the doorframe. Once again she jerked to a stop.  The rough motion caused the cut in her side to burn even more, and Akane whimpered.

A duet of growls echoed down the hallway to Akane as Ranko and Princess seemed to now be trying to kill each other instead of joining the fight with the cat-man. It was too much. Akane’s body felt wracked with more pain than she’d ever experienced in her entire life, and she was _terrified_ that this cat-man was going to give her body and soul to an evil demonic necklace the second her fingers slipped from the doorframe.

Akane snapped. Something foreign deep inside came clawing up from her lungs and out of her throat.  It felt as if someone else had momentarily seized control of her tongue and lips as she opened her mouth and… _MEOWED_ –demandingly.

Ranko and Princess immediately jerked their heads towards Akane. They looked shocked. It took only a split second for them to finish untangling themselves. Then they charged. Ranko yowled threateningly at the cat-man.

After one last, muscle-wrenching tug, which left Akane barely clinging to the doorframe with only two fingers, the cat-man unexpectedly gave up. Releasing Akane’s arm with an angry hiss, he sprinted into the empty room.  Not slowing down in the slightest, he dived through the closed window, raining glass shards through the air, and escaped out into the yard. Hot on his heels, Princess leapt past Akane and through the jagged hole in the window, disappearing into the darkness.

Akane stayed frozen in place until Ranko butted against Akane’s legs. Snapped out of her daze, Akane blinked down at her.  “Another close call…” she whispered.  Stepping carefully up to the broken window, Akane squinted into the night, but couldn’t see any struggling figures. Ranko whined from the hallway for her to leave.  “Good hunting, Princess,” she called softly.  Then Akane squared her shoulders and left the room.

Things proceeded quickly after that.  Most of the male monks were still up and fighting. They had pushed the soldiers back out of the hallway and more than halfway back into the dining room.

After finally releasing the captives, Akane had to smile tiredly as the female monks gave a unanimous battle cry and rushed out into the dining room to join their brothers.  She had no doubt that they’d quickly finish off the remaining soldiers. Only the woman Akane had talked to before stayed. 

“Here, sit down for a moment and let me see to that,” the woman said.

Akane was confused until she realized that the woman was gesturing to the blood soaking Akane’s side and half of her skirt.  “Oh… thank you.”

“I’m Sato Mariko, by the way,” she explained as she fetched a knife from an unconscious guard just outside the doorway. “You might at well call me Mariko though, since you did rescue me. Besides which,” a grin twitched her lips, “at least three unrelated monks out there share my same last name, so it gets confusing trying to figure out which one of us you’re talking to if you call for Sato-san,” she finished with a wink.

Mariko was a muscular woman in her forties. Laugh lines radiated from her calm brown eyes, and a few strands of silver streaked her sleek, chin-length black hair. Akane liked her. Even though they’d just met, she made Akane think of a trusted Aunt to whom you could confide anything and she’d take it in stride.

Coming back in, Mariko quickly used the knife to cut off the hem of her own shirt for a makeshift bandage, revealing toned abdominals bearing several crisscrossed scars that proclaimed to those who had the eyes to see that this woman was no stranger to fighting. After putting down the strips of cloth, Mariko pointed the knife at Akane and ordered, “Now, lift up your shirt and let me see that wound.”

One minute Mariko was briskly reaching for Akane’s wound with the hand not holding the knife, and the next, Ranko’s tense body was interspersed between them.  A threatening snarl emanated from Ranko’s throat.  Gulping and wide-eyed, Mariko put her hands up and backed slowly away.

“What is _she_?” Mariko asked, her voice going up an octave on the last word as Ranma’s face did something threatening that Akane couldn’t see.

 “It’s just one of his, I mean her, curses, but she’s really not bad, don’t worry.”  The look Mariko sent her clearly conveyed that these words were not reassuring in the slightest.

Frustrated, Akane found herself growling. “Ranko, you idiot! Stop it right now!” Akane snapped.  “She’s trying to help, leave her alone.”  Without conscious thought, Akane found her fist raised and clenched in warning.

Looking back over her shoulder, Ranko met Akane’s eyes for a moment before glancing surreptitiously at her fist.  Sniffing loudly in apparent unconcern, Ranko nevertheless stopped growling and turned her back to Mariko. 

“Sorry about th-,” Akane began to say before the redhead unexpectedly flopped down on top of Akane’s feet, causing her to topple back into a chair, “Oof!…that.”

Out of the corner of her eye, Akane saw Mariko suppressing a smirk. “Jerk,” Akane muttered at Ranko.

Mariko cautiously stepped up to Akane, but when Ranko continued to pointedly ignore her, she slowly relaxed.  “Now this is just temporary until we get somewhere safer,” Mariko warned as she pulled Akane’s shirt up.  Staring at the blood-soaked bandages, she remarked, “I see this won’t be the first temporary bandage either. You’ve lost a good bit of blood it looks like too.  You’ll have to take it easy from now on.”

Despite Mariko’s gentle touch, rebinding the bleeding slash was painful. To distract herself from the pain, Akane explained to Mariko about finding the pearl necklace, meeting the male monks, and running into the cat-man in the hallway. Several grunts and whimpers escaped Akane’s lips during her story, and by the end of it all she was sweating, white-faced, and nauseous.  Ranko didn’t look too happy either; if she’d had actual cat ears they would have been pressed flat against her head. During the procedure, Ranko had compressed herself into a small yet heavy ball on top of Akane’s feet, a comforting weight that Akane tried to focus on through the pain.

“Last night, after the two of you escaped from here,” began Mariko as she tied off the end of the bandage, “they made the guards stay in the room all night to make sure none of the rest of us escaped. They got a little bored and started talking about why we were kidnapped.” Akane raised her head, curiosity pushing back some of her exhaustion.

Mariko continued, “They said they needed pure female warriors for the prophet’s private guard, that using men had been a mistake. Something about it taking a cat to kill a cat, and the irony of turning the weapons of the ancient enemy back against them.”

Sitting back, Mariko wiped the traces of Akane’s blood off her hands and onto her sides of her pants with a faint grimace. Then she continued, “That need for ‘purity’ is probably the only reason why none of us were molested, considering the way some of those men were looking and talking about us.”

Mariko bit her lip and tilted her head as if examining Akane’s face for something.  She must have found it, because she started speaking again. “One of the older men, one with the look of a fanatic about his eyes, told the other guards that the purest of us women would have a different fate.  That she might have the honor of becoming a consort to their god, and giving birth to his offspring. His eyes were appraising our youngest initiate, Haruka-chan, when he said it.” Mariko paused as if unsure if she wanted to voice a thought. Then she said, “She’s about your age.”

Akane felt her eyebrows scrunching up in confusion. Each thought seemed to flow like honey.  “Meaning what, Mariko-san?” she asked.

Sighing, Mariko stood up.  “I don’t know, but the pearl necklace and the cat-man in the hallway you told me about?” Akane nodded as Mariko finished her thought, “They’re probably part of it.”

Then, in a swift change of subject, Mariko counseled, “You’re definitely going to need stitches.  And that wound already looks infected, so make sure you keep an eye on it.”

Giving Mariko a weary but polite smile, Akane thanked her.  It must have become infected during their swim in the river… or maybe tramping through the countryside… or the knife could have been dirty to begin with. Mentally throwing up her hands in defeat, Akane decided that it didn’t really matter how it got that way.

By the time they came out of the room into the dining hall, all of the soldiers were either unconscious, tied up, or had run away.  None of the monks wanted to stick around, however, in case the soldiers came back with reinforcements. Luckily, some enterprising young man had discovered a dock and several extra motorboats, so they would all have a quick escape. 

Even with Mariko supporting her on one side, Akane found herself staggering like a drunk towards the dock. Finally she managed to make it into the back of one of the boats with Ranko, where she collapsed.  Akane didn’t even hear the engine start before she passed out.

TO BE CONTINUED 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some of you might be surprised that they seem to have left the compound without actually resolving the problem or solving everything (or anything).  Hopefully it isn’t a horrible surprise.  This has been part of the plan all along, I promise.  So please continue to read and bear with me. Do let me know your thoughts though, please. Also, if anything is confusing, please tell me specifics.
> 
> Random thought/question- Do you ever read fanfic for series that you’ve never watched or only watched a couple of episodes of?  It rarely happens to me, but sometimes I am so intrigued by a story description or an author that I give it a shot.  Series I have done this with are Samurai Deeper Kyo (Kyo/Yuya love! I haven’t read or seen more than 5 minutes of this, though I’ve looked up the character bios), Gokusen (Shinkumi forever! After my first fic, I devoured the manga and anime and now love it all), and Dragon Ball Z (I was never a big fan of the anime so I’ve only seen a handful of episodes, but I’ve read a several awesome Vegeta/Bulma fics since). Also Transformers, Person of Interest, and Merlin, because the author Astolat can make anything amazing. I tried a Full Metal Alchemist fic even though I’ve never seen the anime, but I couldn’t get into it without the background so I gave up. What about you guys?


	12. Fever, Thunderstorms, and Collaring

The next few times Akane woke up, she felt like her entire body was on fire and a giant was stomping on her head.  Sometimes she would try to make the giant go away, and then Mariko and other cold hands that she didn’t recognize would hold her down and force her to stop. The entire time, Ranko caterwauled in the background.

While dreaming, Akane relived her time in the fortress over and over again.  Sometimes she escaped with Ranko and made it to the cave in the jungle. Other times, they were recaptured.  At one point, she found herself unable to fight off the soldiers and could only scream and sob through her gag as they took turns violating both her and Ranko.

Akane woke up out of that nightmare swinging, and felt her fist connect with someone’s flesh. Despite her best efforts to escape, her body was too weak and she merely flopped onto the floor. Someone picked her up and put her back on the futon. Gentle hands smoothed the blanket back up over her chest and moved her hair off her sweaty forehead. Akane sobbed futilely as a fevered sleep dragged her back under.

At first, she found herself wandering alone in the seemingly abandoned fortress. Then she turned the corner and found the two soldiers who had tied her up unconscious on the floor. Picking up a dagger, she gave a cry of rage and started stabbing the soldiers. Blood spattered onto her face, but she didn’t seem to care.

Horrified, she escaped into a dream involving inventorying the kitchen closet. Princess wasn’t there. A little frog kept asking her for soy sauce, but she couldn’t find any.  Akane gave him a bottle of fish sauce instead. They looked the same, so substituting it in the recipe should be fine.

Only rarely did Akane wake lucid enough to realize that she was very sick. At those times, someone would pour medicine or a cup of soup down her throat.  Then Ranko would curl up alongside Akane’s legs and chase her into sleep with her purring.

In other nightmares, Akane put on the pearl necklace. The outcome of this changed each time she dreamed it. The first time, she merely died quickly. The next, she died slow, drained of vitality into a mummified husk. Another time, she turned into a hideous monster that killed everything in sight. 

The worst time, though, she passively watched as the giant pewter rat from the hallway waddled in and carelessly bit an unconscious Ranko’s throat out, exposing the white of her spine. Then the rat turned into a man. At the crook of his finger, Akane smiled and took off her clothes. Stepping up to him, she kissed his red-smeared mouth and then had sex with him the floor, not caring that her hair rested in a pool of Ranko’s congealing blood.

Waking up after that nightmare, Akane found herself vomiting violently. It got all over her clothes and the bed, but she couldn’t stop. For over a minute her body shook with dry heaves. Agony radiated from her side with each convulsion, but she couldn’t stop. Finally, spent, she collapsed back into her filthy pillow. Akane wanted to die. Tears leaked from her closed eyes.

In her misery, she heard a woman’s voice speaking soothingly. The woman came over and cleaned Akane up with a damp cloth.  More hands came and helped change her clothes and bandages. Then they changed the sheets.  Cradling her head, the kind voice made her take a few sips of something minty before Akane fell back asleep.

The next few dreams blurred. At one point, her mother came and tried to teach her how to sew a hakama for Ranma, but Akane kept messing up and having to rip the stitches back out with her teeth.  If he was going to stay in Japan instead of going back to China, her mother explained, he needed Japanese hakama to replace his Chinese clothes. The pile of strings became a bowl of ramen, and then Akane woke up to the smell of soup broth.  Keeping her eyes open through force of will, Akane managed to drink a small cup.

The next time Akane fell asleep, she found herself watching the memory of her death at Jusendo.  It filled her with pride to see her doll-sized body shield Ranma, especially since she couldn’t feel the pain of Saffron’s attack this time. Detached, she watched as the doll’s eyes slipped closed.

In the quietude of death, something like the scent and tingle of a thunderstorm became tangible to her spirit. Slowly, her soul seeped out of the doll, following the smell until the tingle became a buzz as she stepped through a glowing portal. On the other side, she began travelling up a grassy hillside with a tall gate at the apex. The dreaming Akane followed.

_I don’t remember this happening_ , she thought with a moment of lucidity before being sucked back into the dream.

Even now, she couldn’t look at the gate too long without blinking and rubbing her eyes. She couldn’t tell if it was an iron black gate that sucked in all light, or a prismatic white gate that reflected rainbows. As her soul reached the top of the hill, the grass turned into a tiled courtyard.

In the center of the courtyard rested the mysterious gate. Akane saw herself watching her feet as she very carefully avoided stepping on any of the seams between tiles. It had seemed very important at the time, though she now couldn’t remember why. To her dreaming mind, it merely looked like a way to delay the permanent separation from her physical body.

Suddenly, dream Akane became the one walking up to the gate instead of just watching it all happen. Her pace slowed as she neared the door, until finally she came to a stop only a few feet away.  She couldn’t look directly at the doors, but as her hand hesitantly reached out to grasp the handle, her fingers seemed backlit rather than dimmed by the door’s aura.

As Akane looked down to more cautiously examine the effect, she became aware of how the shadows fell at her feet. The shadows didn't form the shape of the door or her own body. Rather, it looked as if a crowd of people stood only a few feet ahead of her, casting their shadows onto the ground. _Perhaps on the other side of this strange gate?_ she thought.

Emotion swelled in Akane’s breast as she recognized the shadowy profiles of her grandparents and, most precious of all, her mother. Their shadow arms seemed to beckon lovingly, urging her forward. A light wind began to seep through the door, bringing the soft sounds of chattering people. Akane thought she recognized the lilt of her mother’s voice.

Inside her heart, her anticipation rose like the sun, awakening her hopes of seeing her deceased mother again. A smile curved her lips. Akane stepped forward eagerly and tried to open the door. When her fingers were only a hairs width from touching the handle, however, she abruptly jerked to a stop.

Shocked, Akane felt something bite onto the trailing ribbon of her spirit and _yank_. It began frantically dragging her back across the courtyard and away from the gate. Unable to take her eyes off the shadow profile of her mother, Akane struggled to get away, to go back. The pace of their retreat slowed as she dug in her heels.

Moments later, another two forms bracketed her on either side, each grabbing an arm and pulling. Despite her best efforts, she found herself overcome by their combined strength.  When they’d dragged her back onto the grass, the teeth latched onto her spirit heaved at the same time as one of the figures kicked at the back of her knee, and they all went tumbling down the hillside.

Unable to see the courtyard or gate any longer, Akane found herself flat on her back in the grass with a heavy weight on her chest and another over her legs. Blinking, she tensed up and turned her head to glare at the nearest body pressing her down into the hillside. When the dark-haired man lifted his face from the curve of her shoulder, Akane realized with surprise that the person restraining her was a very upset Ranma. 

“You’re looping back,” Ranma demanded fiercely, “whether you like it or not,” he finished with a hitch in his voice. A muscle in his jaw twitched as he swallowed heavily.

The body on her legs shifted, and suddenly Ranko’s face popped up over Ranma’s shoulder, meeting Akane’s eyes beseechingly. “Akane, I’m sorry, and I’m-” her voice cracked as her gaze shifted away. “I’m really lame at this stuff,” she muttered. Her blue eyes shimmered with unshed tears. The brilliant red of her hair seemed dimmed by her distress.

Confused, Akane looked at the faces of her fiancé, seeing Ranma’s and Ranko’s features side by side for the first time. As she watched, a teardrop escaped Ranma’s eye and trickled down off his chin. She could feel the heat of it as it splashed onto the cool skin of her throat. “I never… told you what I really felt. I just made you mad and hurt you,” Ranma said apologetically.

Ranko sniffled, her lip trembled, and then tears began beading up and falling from her glistening azure eyes. “Akane… I need you,” she said thickly.

Letting out a deep breath, Akane surrendered herself to Ranma’s will. After closing her eyes, she sent a grateful prayer winging up the hill towards God for his mercy, with an added apology to her mother. She knew her family wouldn’t mind waiting a little bit longer for their reunion. Besides, she had the comfort of knowing that her mother wouldn’t be waiting alone.

Ranma needed her, her path was clear.

When her body went limp, both Ranmas slowly got off of Akane and stood up.  Freed, Akane made to stand up herself, but found her movements still somewhat restrained.  A large panther with midnight fur and Ranma’s sapphire eyes had a glowing tendril of Akane’s soul trapped in his mouth.  Standing up slowly, Akane took a step away and tried to tug it out discreetly. The panther merely grumbled at her and refused to let go.

Sighing, Akane found her gaze drawn back to the gate at the top of the hill. She wanted the annoying cat to get his teeth off of her.  As she squinted at the wavering image of the gate, trying to make out more details, she tugged more firmly at her soul. Slowly the gate began to come into focus, both doors made of gleaming crystal. The handles were rainbows, restrained on either end by golden flanges. Ranma asked something, but Akane was too distracted to answer.

Then the cat yanked back on her soul, _hard_.  The force of the pull sent her stumbling into the panther’s side. Before she could do more than gasp, Ranko jumped to her side and grabbed at the trailing cord of Akane’s soul.  For a split second Akane thought she meant to help.  But then Ranko looped Akane’s soul around the panther’s neck.

Akane felt something inside herself wrench open. It hurt and it felt _wrong_. Gasping, Akane tried to fling herself away, but the three of them fenced her in. The pain ratcheted higher and higher into agony, until it felt like she was being impaled through the intestines by a rusty pipe.

Ranma reached over her body, quickly yanking out a strand of Ranko’s hair and a bit of his own. Taking advantage of Akane’s distraction, he swiftly used them to tie shut the loop of Akane’s soul, forming it into a makeshift collar around the panther’s neck. As soon as he tied off the knot of hair and spirit, and lifted away his fingers, the pain immediately dulled to a throbbing ache.

The opening in Akane’s spirit slammed shut, but not all of the way. Something had forced its way inside with her, and left the way back cracked open. Something not-Akane curled up in an Akane-only place. She felt violated.

When the three stepped back, Akane was shaking with residual pain and shock. Feelings of betrayal and rage throbbed like a sore tooth. “What did you do?” Akane demanded hoarsely, but she suspected that she already knew. Someone had just been collared, and it hadn’t been Ranma’s cat spirit. Akane wanted to violently scream and hit Ranma, all three Ranmas.

No one answered her question. Suddenly, all three Ranmas turned to look at the portal at the base of the hill. In the silence between moments, Akane felt something vibrate across the pores of her skin like Morse code _. I love you_ , it howled without making a sound, the message quaking through her body. Akane gasped and staggered.

Then she distantly heard her name from outside the portal. It was Ranma. He was screaming for her.

Knocked out of her anger, Akane whipped around to look out the shimmering portal. She needed time to think about what had just happened, but there _was_ no time. Ranma needed her. In such a situation, over a year of instincts urged her to come running. Yet did he deserve that after what he’d just done? Conflicted, she didn’t know which way to turn. The panther purred encouragingly and tugged her towards the portal by the leash.

Ranma needed her. She had to go. She’d figure out the rest of it later. Giving into the pull, Akane went back through the portal. Everything faded to black.

00000000000000000000000

When Akane finally woke up again, the fiery pain was gone. Only faint remnants of her nightmares lingered. Most of it she couldn’t remember. Her head finally felt clear and she was thirsty.  Looking around, she found herself in a very plain room that she didn’t recognize.  A small wooden table, a dresser, and a chair were the only furniture besides the futon.  Outside the window, she could see familiar pine trees. 

When Mariko walked into the room carrying a tray, Akane asked, “Are we back at your temple?” 

Cutlery rattled on the tray as the female monk jumped in surprise. “You’re awake more quickly than I expected.”  Mariko smiled warmly, “Good!”  Putting the tray down she answered, “and yes, we are back home.”

Kneeling down, Mariko put the back of her hand on Akane’s forehead and then her cheek, checking her temperature.  “Your fever broke last night. Happily, it doesn’t seem to be coming back. Now, drink your medicine,” Mairko ordered kindly. 

Akane grimaced at the smell coming from the cup Mariko held out, but dutifully took it in her weak grasp and quickly gulped it down. 

“Blech!” Akane gasped when she finished.

Chuckling, Mariko replied, “Oh hush up, it’s good for you.  Now, someone has been very anxious for you to wake up.”

Going to the window, which was barely big enough for Mariko to stick her head out, the woman whistled loudly.  Then she came back over, propped Akane up with some pillows, and took a seat.

“Who?” Akane asked, but a few seconds later she heard a rapid thumping sound that seemed to come from the hallway outside her door.  “Ranma…” Akane whispered her guess as a smile bowed her lips.

She was right, but not exactly in the way she had expected.  Rounding the corner in a bounding run, Ranko raced over to the side of the futon and skidded to a stop.  The two girls’ eyes met for a heart-stopping moment before Ranko gingerly climbed up on the futon, somehow mindful of Akane’s injuries, draped herself over Akane’s legs, and started purring like mad.

“Wha….” For a moment, Akane felt a strange flash of resentment towards catfist Ranko. Confused, she shook her head sharply and looked down into Ranko’s hopeful blue eyes. Unconsciously, her fingers lifted and began to scratch Ranko’s head, which somehow impossibly increased the volume of her purring.  Distracted, Akane asked, “Why is she still like this? Why didn’t she change back?”

Mariko looked bewildered.  “Change back to what?  Isn’t this her normal state?”

Akane felt agitation as she struggled to answer Mariko’s questions.  When Ranko nudged her hand to remind her to keep scratching, Akane took a deep breath slowly ran her fingers again through the girl’s silky red hair.  Then she began to explain about Ranma and his crazy curses.  It was hard to know where to start, so she decided to briefly skim through the sex changing and then leap into the catfist.

As she petted Ranko’s head, she found herself soothed and comforted, despite her lingering weakness.  Tense areas of her body relaxed into the futon. Ranko was like P-chan, only better because she could warm large areas of her body at once. 

_Except she’s not a pet, she’s Ranma and a PERSON, remember?  A person who often acts like a jerk,_ Akane reminded herself.  _A person who will want to be a male person instead of a female cat as soon as possible, and whom you shouldn’t be petting._ _So stop it._

It took effort, but Akane forced herself to remove her hand from temptation and tuck it under her sheet.  Ranko shot her a grumpy but contented look, and settled even more firmly on top of her legs, closing her eyes to take a nap. The warmth made Akane’s eyes heavy. 

“So only some old woman in his neighborhood could change her,” Mariko paused and coughed politely, “I mean him, back to normal?  If so, that could explain why she’s still acting like a cat.”  Mariko examined Ranma curiously, “the right person isn’t here to calm her down.” 

Akane wanted to tell Mariko that changing Ranko from a girl to a boy with hot water should work too… and she would just as soon as she could get her eyelids to open.  Hot water for… the cat…. Sleep sucked her under.

TO BE CONTINUED

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AN: Hey, a not as short chapter! So for those of you who’ve read my oneshot “Broken Glass,” what did you think about the similarities and differences with Akane’s brush with death? I ended up using some of the dialog from the Viz media English translation of the last manga for Ranma, to hint at a connection between the waking world and the spirit realm. The two lines used were the middle ones about “I’m really lame at this stuff,” and “I never told you how I felt.” Plus his projected thought of ‘I love you.’ Did anyone recognize them? What did you think about the complexities of the actions taken? My first draft was a bit waffy, but then during editing I started adding a bit of description and my muse hijacked it and it got a bit dark.
> 
> Ramblings1: The reference to Akane’s other dream about sewing a hakama was a homage to my first fic, “Hakama Dake.” After being asked a few questions in a recent review, I went back and reread it for the first time in years.  I am simultaneously both very proud and slightly embarrassed.  I totally went overboard with my descriptions, especially on eye color. Ack! I wonder if it is even worth it to go back and try to cut an editing swath through the thing.  I am quite proud of a couple of those descriptive paragraphs though, which do sound cool. I also noticed a phrase from a Dixie Chicks song, “take the warnings as wisdom.” Pride and Prejudice also snuck in somehow, with Sano teasing Kaoru and then staring at her smirking until she snaps, “Stop it, Sanosuke.” That is a spitting image of the 6 hour Colin Firth P&P when Lizzie is mildly teasing Jane about Mr. Bingly by smirking at her justifications, until Jane snaps, “Stop it, Lizzie.” Silly me.  Also, how did I write three solid chapters of nothing but making out?  I certainly surprised myself in rereading it, as I’d forgotten a lot. Part of it had to stem from the fact that I was saving myself for marriage.  Now that I am happily married and not frustrated, I don’t think I could write the story the same way. But I’m still proud of it. I also thought it was clear when I wrote it that they didn’t go all the way, but rereading it, I now see all of these vague moments when you could totally use your own imagination to make things get more explicit. Hmm. Rereading it also made me more aware of how my new stories might disappoint or confuse people looking for a sensual feast instead of a story more focused plot/action/drama and only moments of sensuality.  But I’ve been trying to stretch my skill level! I’m glad that some of you decided to give me a chance anyways, though. Thanks!
> 
> Ranmbling2: I just discovered this awesome manga called “1/2 Prince.”  It’s Chinese, but has been translated in English up to volume 8 by Odd Squad Scanlation group online.  It has gender bending, bishies, comedy, romance, MMORPGs, and even a homage to Kenshin.  Yays! Any online manga recs for me?
> 
> Thank you very much for reading and PLEASE REVIEW!


	13. Juice Ads and Static on the Radio

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I went through the mother of all storms in the Midwest while writing this. Five tornado warnings in the last six hours, yikes! I type the last of this on battery power by candlelight for you, serenaded by cracks and rumbles of thunder. (Yay, I survived!)

When Akane woke up again, Ranko was a warm weight sitting by her side, staring intently out the window.  The redhead had clasped her arms loosely around one leg, with her cheek resting on her knee and her shoulders bowed.  A shaft of sunlight, glittering with floating particles of dust, streamed down onto her head. The light brought out metallic gold highlights in her red hair and shadowed the furrows in her brow. Ranko’s face looked both sad and wistful. It broke Akane’s heart a little bit to see it.

“I’ll fix it soon,” Akane promised drowsily in a slightly raspy voice.

Ranko turned quickly and grabbed Akane’s hand. “Akane, you’re awake!” she exclaimed. Relief surged across the redhead’s face. “Are you okay?  What happened to us?”

Ranko’s convulsive grip made the knuckles in Akane’s hand crack loudly, but Akane barely noticed.  She was still processing that Ranko, who’d been acting like a cat the last time few times Akane had been awake, had spoken.   _Which meant…_ “You got out of the catfist without hot water.  That’s wonderful, Ranma!  How did you do it?”

Frustration twisted Ranko’s mouth as she answered, “I don’t know.  In fact, I don’t know anything that’s going on!  All I remember is that we got attacked and kidnapped. I woke up soaking wet in a cave to find that you’d rescued both of us, and then there was a big group of ca-ca-cats. I musta passed out or gone into the catfist or something.”

Ranko paused and looked at her questioningly.

“It was the catfist,” Akane confirmed. “You ran those other cats off.”

“Well, that’s something I guess, least I wasn’t just unconscious,” Ranko groused. “Wish I could remember, but anyways, I have flashes of maybe a kitchen or hallway after that.  Next thing I know, I woke up in this room, curled up around your body,” Akane blushed, but Ranko seemed too caught up in her explanation to notice, “with you lying there next to me looking as pale as-,” she paused for a second, overcome, and then forced her cracking voice to continue, “pale as death. Then some old lady came in and told me your fever had just broke.”  Ranko looked away guiltily and took a deep breath.  “I guess you got sick from getting soaked and then having to sleep outside in a cold cave after you rescued us.”

Akane opened her mouth to correct her, but Ranko kept talking, her voice taking on a tinge of self-loathing.  “Thanks for saving me and stuff, and I’m sorry I proved to be so useless.”

“Ranma…” Akane wasn’t sure quite where to start, how to explain that he’d taken out probably half a fortress all by himself.  She wasn’t used to Ranma sounding so defeated.  “You may not remember what happened, but you certainly weren’t useless!”  Before Akane could say anything else, Mariko came back into the room.

“I brought hot water,” Mariko caroled happily.  “I can’t wait to see this change you told me about, Ranko.”

Putting on a fake smile, Ranko thanked her.  Then, taking the teapot, Ranko poured a quick stream of hot water onto her head.  Mariko gasped.

No matter how many times Akane had seen the transformation, she always found it fascinating to watch.  The lush tint of Ranko’s hair seemed to stream down her braid and slough off with the water droplets as brownish-black rapidly replaced red.  Ranko’s chin gained definition and stubble, her chest and hips shrank while her shoulders broadened, and her limbs grew longer and more muscular. 

A split second later only Ranma the man remained. Times like this forced Akane to notice the strength and beauty of his body, including the sexy shape of his lips. Sometimes the attraction hit Akane like a blow square on the chest, cutting off her breath.

Ranma’s lips were actually the same shape in both forms; they never changed. She’d checked. But the almost overwhelming curiosity about their taste, the desire to trace that seam with little flicks of her tongue and see how he reacted, if he’d blush or gasp or growl….  Those thoughts only reared up when he was male (male and not annoying her).  In recent months, it had become an urge that was getting harder and harder to suppress.

Ranma, oblivious, adjusted his belt around his now slender male hips.  “Huh,” he said softly as he fingered the notch cut into the leather and tile on his puzzle belt, where the would-be rapist had tried to cut it off.  “How did that happen?  And on a new gift too…” he complained to himself.

Since he was examining his belt, he didn’t see Akane’s face go white at his question.  Her mind spun frantically. How would she explain this to Ranma without him freaking out?  Did she have to tell him everything? What had almost happened… she did not want to relive that again.  In fact, she’d rather just forget it had ever happened.

“Wow, that’s so neat!” Mariko exclaimed, unaware of Akane’s tension.  “Can we do it again?” she asked, her eyes widening like a delighted child’s, erasing years of wrinkles.

“I’m not a toy,” Ranma complained.  But seeing Mariko’s childlike pleading expression start to fall, he sighed. “Fine, whatever, go ahead.”

Delighted, Mariko poured a cup of cold water from a pitcher on the table and turned him back into a girl, and then a boy again. She did this a few more times until she was satisfied.

“Thanks for being such a good sport,” Mariko finally said to Ranma as she resumed her mature image and handed him a towel.

Turning back to Akane, she declared, “Now, I’m afraid it’s time for your next dose of medicine.” Walking over to Akane, she held out a gently steaming mug that had gone unnoticed on the tray with the teapot.

Distracted from her thoughts, Akane glared at the mug weakly.  “Do I have to?  I’m feeling better now.”  The trembling of the hand she’d raised in supplication proved her words as lies.

“Yes, you do,” Mariko answered cheerfully.  “Now, down the hatch!”

Akane propped herself up on one elbow to accept the mug. Taking it, she closed her eyes, tipped her head back, and gulped the medicine down as quickly as possible, trying not to gag.  It tasted even worse this time. Absentmindedly, she noticed her sheet starting to slip down her from her neck to pool on her lap.

When she reopened her eyes, she noticed that Ranma was facing the doorway and looked flush. 

“I turned around before I saw anything,” Ranma said defensively.  Though it _had_ taken him a few seconds to turn his appreciative gaze away from how she looked with her head thrown back, her elegant throat undulating as she swallowed.

Ranma tried to tell himself that he was just tired. It was an image of vitality, nothing like the specter of death that had teased him when he’d first woken to see her pale form. That or the scene had merely reminded him of a commercial for a new juice he liked.

_Yes, it must be some juice ad_ , he told himself firmly. It was just habit to watch someone in that pose. But his heart knew better. It whispered that he could lie to others, but not to himself.

Akane enticed and entranced Ranma more than any model drinking a bottle of juice ever could. It was ridiculous. Even sweaty, rumpled, and ill, to him, she still seemed to radiate something that left him absolutely mesmerized. He found it difficult to turn away from her. Sometimes back in what passed for normal life in Nerima, he found it difficult to remember why he should even try.

However, when her blanket slipped and he saw the creamy skin of her bare shoulder start to appear, habit kicked in, and Ranma had quickly flipped around. He wanted to avoid a beating. After all, he’d only just barely regained human consciousness.  He preferred to savor it rather than be knocked out again and lose even more time this week.

All of his planning and scheming for this trip had come to naught.  Not only had he failed to give Akane a reason to clarify their engagement, he’d also gotten her kidnapped again and proved quite spectacularly that she didn’t need him.  In fact, all that this trip had shown was that _he_ needed _her_ , and he already knew that.

Sometimes, he wished he didn’t. It would make his life so much easier.

Ranma could win against anything and anyone.  He might have to temporarily lose a few rounds before figuring out a good strategy, but he never gave up and, ultimately, he triumphed. That’s how it worked when Ranma Saotome entered a competition. At least, that’s what he used to think.

But with Akane, his ‘never say die’ strategy hadn’t worked because during one of his fights Akane _had_ died. Sure, she had somehow come back to life, but that event had shaken his confidence. Ever since, he had felt slightly hollow, as if physically missing something. He hid it well, but his belief in his ability to always win, especially when it came to something involving Akane, wasn’t a foregone conclusion anymore.

 That realization had affected other things in his life too.  He had a new caution in accepting challenges.  He still accepted them, and was pretty confident in beating them, but he made sure to do more research on his opponents. All of their allies or minions, anyone who might even think to interfere with Akane while he was distracted, were tallied and planned for.

To be honest, Ranma enjoyed the new strategy and detail involved in his recent fights.  The difficulty suited his maturing need for more complex challenges. It took smarts to outmaneuver multiple enemies at once, to meet their attacks both from the shadows and from the front. Sometimes Ranma wished he could boast of it to Akane, but then she might get the wrong idea, or rather, the right idea of his need for her admiration.  Besides, a true man shouldn’t get too cocky.

Oh, who was he kidding? He hadn’t held back because of any sort of humility.  He’d held back because, knowing Akane, she’d try to follow along after him. When she caught up, she’d either lecture him on all of the ways that he could do his spying better, or else end up captured and needing rescue. Whatever the case, Akane hadn’t caught on to his new covert activities yet. He could tell.

Ranma could tell because recently something between them had changed. Lately, he could sometimes sense Akane and know exactly where she was in relation to himself, even on the other side of the city. Ever since they’d come back from China, a part of his brain had become like a radio station filled with static. At unexpected moments, the signal sharpened until he could sense to the millimeter exactly where Akane was in relation to himself. 

The first time, he’d followed the sensation for over twenty minutes until he’d ended up in a park. It had led him to a swing set. Staring in surprise, he’d watched Akane’s legs pumping mightily on a swing as her toes reached for the sky. He hadn’t seen her face from his position by the fence, but the curve of her calves and the sweet tension in her back had shouted her identity to him as easily as a profile would have to other men. It felt like a loop of cord bound the two of them together.

Then the sensation had disappeared and Ranma had retreated back around the corner, breathing hard.

 


	14. Tuning in on Akane

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reading and giving my story a chance! Thanks also for the support! Good luck to everyone out there trying to find a job, too. My mom and sister both got laid off this month. Boo. But here is fanfic escapist therapy for us all.

For the next hour, no matter how hard he focused on it, he received only static. He couldn’t sense her beyond the faint flutter of ki that only became apparent when he snuck up close. So he took a deep breath, stopped straining, and settled in to wait.  

Years of training had taught Ranma that sometimes you had to distract your mind with something else in order to let a technique settle into the muscles. This sensing of Akane might just be a new technique he was picking up. Ranma decided to try distracting himself for a little while and see if it worked.  If not, he’d simply hunker down and stalk the sensation, ready to pounce the next time it appeared.

Over the next few weeks and months, his waiting paid off. The sensation repeated itself again and again. It came inconsistently, and the length of time he could sense Akane varied. A few times, the unexpected opening of that channel would leave him more depleted of energy than the exertion of the day could explain. His punches seemed to come slightly slower and require a bit more effort.

The first few times, he noticed that Akane seemed more bouncy than usual. However, he thought that it was just his own fatigue talking. After all, he reasoned, if she was somehow receiving energy from him, wouldn’t she say or do something? It wasn’t like Akane to pass up an excuse to wrangle with him. She’d probably resent any tie between them, too, he told himself with a pang.

Ranma wasn’t sure what it meant, but he didn’t mention it to Doctor Tofu. The Doctor might try to eliminate this strange tie between him and Akane, and Ranma didn’t want that. He liked knowing Akane’s exact location. In fact, he had come to crave the sensation.

During those times when the static cleared, Ranma could sense the orientation of each of her limbs in relation to himself. He could almost feel her breath ghosting across his neck. Sometimes, he could even taste a phantom saltiness on the tip of his tongue that corresponded to the scent of Akane’s skin. It was becoming harder to repress the urge to sneak up behind Akane and lick the spot where her shoulder curved up to her throat to compare her real taste against the phantom sensations. When the awareness of Akane faded, it always left him feeling hollow for hours afterwards.

Last month, he’d sensed Akane across town.  He’d only had a minute to enjoy it, because after that he’d matched up the sensation of her body with his mental map of the town and figured out where Akane was located. She was inside a restaurant that Ranma had visited the night before.

He’d gone there the night before because he had received a new challenge. He didn’t end up fighting though, because his opponent wanted to draw things out and try to intimidate Ranma. It wouldn’t work, but Ranma was wary. His challenger had boasted that he’d crippled his previous opponent, a once-cheerful man that Ranma knew. He’d sometimes joined Ranma in the park where he escaped to do tai chi away from his father. Although defeated, he’d still managed to summon a friendly smile when Ranma visited him in the hospital that morning. It was his wife who’d told Ranma how the challenger had laughed as he and his friends burned down their dojo.

Some fights and rivals were fun spectacles that Ranma liked to enjoy as long as possible. He tried not to defeat those rivals too quickly, so they’d come back. They kept him entertained and on his toes.

As he got older though, he’d run into other fighters that lacked any redeeming qualities.  Some people shouldn’t be played with, they should just be taken down. His current match fell into that category. This one wasn’t going to be pretty, and he wouldn’t be playing.

Ranma hadn’t mentioned it to Akane. Justice needed to be served, after all, and Ranma intended to do it. But he planned to be more vicious than usual in the fight. He didn’t want Akane involved. After considering all of the ways that Akane could inconvenience and annoy him (her possibly getting hurt and making him worry had very little to do with it, he told himself), Ranma had decided to hide the challenge from her. After all, his challenger and Akane didn’t even need to know that the other existed.

When Ranma sensed that Akane’s location corresponded to the restaurant owned by his brutal challenger, his heart had stuttered in fear. Thoughts rioting, he swore that he had kept her out of it, hadn’t let any of those lowlifes know about her, much less how much he cared for her. _How had they found out?_ he’d raged.

Running and roof hopping at top speed, it had still taken him almost fifteen minutes to get there.  Visions of Akane being threatened, tied up, or worse kept streaking like meteors through his mind, the impact of each scenario crumbling his hopes for her safety into gravel.

Even worse were the quick images bubbling up from his memory like bile, pictures of Akane’s body, wan in death, lying limp in his arms. Viciously he kept pushing the images down, trying to focus on the cord telling him that Akane was sitting in a chair, still alive. That she was fine.

When he finally arrived at the restaurant, it was only to see Akane strolling out of the door with her friend Yuka.  They walked right by the scumbag and his cronies as Ranma prepared to sweep her away to safety, but by some stroke of luck, the men didn’t even look up.

Suddenly, the cord sending him messages about Akane went silent, and Ranma stumbled at the loss of sensation. Collapsing against the wall of a nearby ally, he watched as Akane convinced Yuka to hand over her heavy bags and then, both hands full, walked down to the corner and into the subway station.

No one followed her. It must have all just been a coincidence, he decided. Relieved, he let his head hang down and watched as a bead of water dripped off of his sweat-soaked bangs. A second later, he heard a “meow” by his feet. Panicked, he took off running in the opposite direction.

Several hours later, he woke up in the canal. Soaking wet and in a bad mood, he went home. After checking on Akane, safe and sound in her room, he retreated up to the roof to think. He realized that he used to be able to resist the catfist by running away. Lately though, it had seemed like he slipped easily into the catfist, with the least bit of stimulus.

The next day, he’d destroyed the brutish restaurateur in their fight. Ranma ‘accidentally’ destroyed his restaurant during the fight too, just in case Akane had any ideas about going back there to eat again. His heart couldn’t take another scare like that.

On the way home, he’d run into another cat and slipped into the catfist once again, as seamlessly as a seal slips into water. He’d barely even had time to notice there was a cat nearby. Surfacing in the Tendo pond with Akane standing over him, a strange look on her face, Ranma had felt a tight knot of dread tense his belly.

He didn’t know what Akane was thinking when she looked at him that way: disgust, fear, or pity? He didn’t know how to deal with this lack of control. Most of all, he didn’t know what he did during the catfist, and he hated that.

Once he’d changed himself back to a man, he’d spent the rest of the evening wearing himself out doing brutal exercises designed by his pops. They were meant for brief 10-15 minute surges, but Ranma kept at them for hours. Kasumi had come to call him in to dinner, but he’d ignored her and kept on going. After a few minutes she’d given up and gone back inside. 

After three intense hours, there wasn’t a muscle on his body that didn’t burn with agony. He’d already had a tiring day before starting these exercises. Ranma knew he needed to stop soon or else he was going to injure himself.  Then Akane came with a tray to try and get him eat. Seeing her only reminded him of his loss of control in the catfist, and of her strange look all over again. To make matters worse, she also knew just what to say to irritate him in two seconds flat.

Suddenly, it became an issue of pride that Ranma wouldn’t stop until _he_ wanted to stop. This, he could control.  And she couldn’t make him go and eat if he didn’t want to.

Yet his sore and trembling body _needed_ to stop. Angry, Ranma tried to reach inside for some untapped well of strength.  If he wanted to keep going, then he would. If he injured himself, then he’d deal with it later. In this state of mind, his lashing will reached down, lurched sideways through a dimple in his aura that he’d been ignoring for months, latched onto something, and _pulled_. 

Immediately Ranma felt strength surge into his body. The pain melted away like butter on a hot skillet. It felt like a flush of endorphins, but even better. Surprise, not soreness, made him finally stop his movements for the first time that night. Curious, he dropped into a mild meditative state to examine his ki and the source of this new energy.

Then he heard Akane whimper, and a crash as she dropped his dinner tray. “I’m sorry,” Akane said faintly. Then she put her palm up to her left eye and pressed.

“What’s wrong,” Ranma asked as he rushed to her side.

Weakly Akane leaned against the doorway.  “A headache appeared out of nowhere. It feels like a steel spike just went through my brain,” she whispered.

Concerned, Ranma put his arm around her waist to steady her. Akane swayed slightly, and Ranma realized that he could once again sense her in his mind and the way her body nestled against his side, but in a way much more clear than he ever had before. At the same time, he felt more energy pour into his body.

Then Ranma put two and two together, and realized that he was draining these pulses of energy _from_ _Akane_. Horrified, he pinched closed the cord, turned off the channel from Akane, and released her.

Averting his face, Ranma crouched down and began cleaning up the spilled food. “I’ll get this, if you want to go and lie down,” he offered shakily.

Akane sighed. “Thanks, Ranma, and sorry….” Then she stumbled into the yard, back to the house, and up to her room.

Appalled at what he’d done, _and what_ had _he just done?_ Ranma cleaned up the dojo and then got himself some food from the kitchen. After taking a bath, Ranma went up to the roof to try and think. 

His mind circled around the problem over and over, but he couldn’t come to any firm conclusion. He shouldn’t be able to draw energy from someone like that. Yet he’d just taken energy from Akane, and without her realizing what he was doing too. That was wrong.

In spite of that, Ranma liked being able to sense Akane.  _He liked it a lot._   But if he could hurt her, he should tell someone about this so they could sever the connection. The thought made his heart howl in protest.

Then a sly voice in his head whispered that a danger acknowledged was a danger avoided. Now that he knew that he could draw energy from her, and what it felt like, he could make sure never to do it again. They must be tied together for a reason, that same voice whispered… and Ranma greedily wanted to accept the justification to keep their connection a secret.

Yet if this could harm her in any way, he had to end it.  Keeping her safe was more important. Nodding his head sharply, Ranma promised himself to go and talk to Doctor Tofu tomorrow.

A few streets over, a trash can rattled and two cats started to yowl. Startled, Ranma jumped up and hurried back into the house. Pausing by Akane’s door momentarily to listen to her faintly snoring, he relaxed minutely and continued in to bed.

That night, Ranma had a nightmare.

In it, Akane had been murdered while he was in the catfist.  Since he was a cat, he hadn’t even cared.  Then, in the dream, someone had splashed him with water and brought him back to his senses.  He’d been just around the corner from Akane’s cooling body, but since he didn’t remember her death, he hadn’t turned back.

Instead, he’d strolled over to Ukyo’s for a snack.  When he’d gotten there, Ukyo had given him some hot water to change back to a man and “to wash off.” He’d asked what she meant, and she’d pointed to the blood streaking his arms – Akane’s blood. Even then, his dream-self had merely washed it off as if it was nothing.  As if Akane’s blood meant _nothing_.

Next, Ryoga had burst into the shop holding Akane’s limp body. Her eyes were filmed over in death and her throat, black and crimson with clotted blood, clawed open by some animal.  In the shocked silence you could hear blood dripping off her dangling hand and spattering onto Ukyo’s polished floorboards.

A few seconds, or was it hours, later, Ryoga had slowly lifted his hand and pointed his finger at Ranma, naming him murderer. Horrified, Ranma had staggered back, shaking his head frantically in denial. In everyone’s eyes he saw the same thing: condemnation.

His dream-self couldn’t even deny anything, because he couldn’t remember that he _hadn’t_ killed her while in the catfist, couldn’t remember that he hadn’t killed _Akane_. 

Ranma woke with a sobbing gasp. Running into Akane’s room, he roughly pulled back her covers.  He hadn’t cared about anything but making sure that she still lived, that his dream of her death had been false.

By some stroke of luck, Akane didn’t wake up at his handling. Possibly this was due to the headache medicine she had taken, but at that moment he didn’t really care. Akane only rolled over with a grumble, kicked out her leg absently, and buried her face into her pillow with a sigh. Ranma collapsed next to her bed with a strangled moan and bit his lip.  As soon as his breathing steadied, he wiped away the moisture from his face with her bed ruffle.

As his hand reached forward to cover her back up with the blanket, the light from the moon cast a black, clawed shadow across her throat. Ranma flinched, reminded of his dream, and found himself scrabbling backwards until his shoulders hit the wall.

“It was just a dream,” he whispered to himself in a wavering voice. Then he forced himself to repeat it more steadily, “It was just a dream.” As his gaze locked onto the rise and fall of her back as she breathed, the channel between them sprang to life. He clung to the sensation like a drowning man to a life preserver.

Nevertheless, it took him several minutes to stop the shaking in his hands.  When he finally regained control of himself, Ranma came forward and slid her blanket back up over her shoulders. Then he knelt next to her bed for the rest of the night, just listening to her breathing and watching the fluctuations of her ki. At the first rays of dawn, he reluctantly stood and returned to his room.

Only the existence of that mental thread allowed him to walk away. The thrumming signal that she breathed in a bed just down the hall kept him sane. He knew that he couldn’t give that connection up now, not for anything or any reason.

That night’s vigil had also given birth to another conviction: he needed to let Akane know how he felt.  Not only to give himself a chance to win her heart and be with her forever, but so that she could use that knowledge if necessary to protect herself. He wanted her safe from harm. He needed to protect her.

But did that mean safe from himself? Yet he needed her nearby, so that he could always _know_ that she was safe. Bad things would happen if Akane wasn’t safe.

Ranma couldn’t explain better than that, because every time he tried to think about it, his mind became a swirling vortex that heralded an incipient panic attack, and his consciousness had to flee to another subject or else get sucked down into madness. Sitting against the wall of Akane’s bedroom at four thirty in the morning, it had all been muddled up in his head to somehow make sense.

Nevertheless, before going back to bed, Ranma had made a vow to stop stalling. He would get her away from all of the craziness and show another side of himself that she could count on and admire. Then he’d win her open affection and love.

Ranma just had to make her need him. If Akane wanted words, he’d give her words, because if he could make her need him, she’d never want to leave. And so over the next few weeks he’d concocted this scam to get her to come alone with him to a shrine in Okinawa.

Earlier this morning, Ranma had woken up next to a fitfully sleeping Akane. They were alone together in a shrine in Okinawa, as he’d intended. Yet nothing had gone according to his plan. The irony was killing him. Stomach churning, he’d scoured his memory for answers, yet it remained a large, ignorant blank. How she’d gotten so pale and tattered had escaped him.

That’s when he’d realized it. He had lost this round. Ranma had lost the chance to express his feelings and ask for hers, to make himself needed, and it was entirely his own fault.  At the cave he’d still had some hope. After waking up to Akane’s white face, though, hope was nowhere to be found.  If hope was the thing with feathers (whatever that English poem had meant by that), then his cat side had eaten it, regurgitated the remains, and buried them too deeply for his human side to find even a trace.

Shaking away such thoughts as he waited for Akane’s response, Ranma told himself that he just needed to eat something. After that, he’d fight one of the monks to sweat out these bitter feelings.  Then he’d be back to his usual confident self.

Waiting for Akane’s reply to his ogling of her creamy skin above the slipping blanket, Ranma just hoped it didn’t involve a head blow. He needed his wits about him to bounce back from this funk and reassume his cocky attitude.

Akane, confused by Ranma’s, ‘I turned around before I saw anything,’ looked down. “Saw anything of what?” she asked. Someone had put her in a comfortably loose top while she’d been feverish. The ragged neckline looked to have stretched out with repeated wear. It was so stretched out, in fact, that the collar had slipped off to bare her shoulder on one side. It didn’t look like she’d spilled anything on herself or done anything embarrassing though, so what was he talking about?

“Like I’d want to look at your naked body anyways, geeze,” Ranma defended brusquely. “I’d go blind.”

“I’m not naked, you pervert,” Akane growled as her trembling elbow forced her body to lie back down. If she’d had the energy, she would have thrown her cup at his head. Before she’d thought of it though, the cup had rolled from her slack hand, off the edge of the futon, and onto the floor.

Mariko laughed heartily at the two of them.  “Not now, but you’ve been sleeping on her bed all week, Ranma, snuggled up close.  She was sometimes naked then, don’t you remember?”

Red stained his cheeks. Ranma hunched his shoulders, peeped back at them quickly, and then turned farther away from them both and growled.  “I don’t remember nothing when I’m a cat, Akane knows that.”

“But you both wish you did, eh,” Mariko chuckled. 

“Like I’d want someone like him-” Akane began to argue, but before she could finish her sentence, a huge yawn took over her mouth. She wanted to protest more, but suddenly she felt swamped with exhaustion.  She could barely keep her eyes open.

Still chuckling, Mariko walked over and picked up the mug Akane had knocked onto the floor.  “It’s time for you to sleep.  You’re not all healed up just yet. After that, someone needs to talk to you.”

“As for you, Ranma,” she paused and suddenly became serious.  “If you really are a man, you’re going to have to leave.”

Confusion and the beginnings of anger pried Akane’s eyes open.  “What are you talking about?”

“Only women are allowed here, no exceptions. Not even for boys who can turn into girls with cold water,” Mariko explained without softening her tone.  “I’d hoped to talk to you more, but that’ll have to happen some other time. You’ll be welcomed just fine at the men’s temple down the mountain.  When Akane feels up to travelling, she can join you there.” 

_But I want him with ME,_ Akane wanted to whine.

“Besides,” Mariko continued, “he’s useless here.”

“But,” Akane started to protest softly through her fatigue, but Ranma interrupted her.

“No, she’s right.” His face still turned away from them, Ranma avoided Akane’s eyes.  “I am _useless_ ,” his voice twisted at the word.  “I’ll…” he swallowed, “I’ll see you later.  You’re a tomboy, so you should heal fast anyways.” With that, he strode into the hallway and out of sight.

Picking up the mug, Mariko patted her on the shoulder and left the room.  Exhausted, Akane felt first one tear, and then another trickle down her cheeks as she turned her face into the pillow.  _You’re not useless to me,_ she thought, _not at all._  Then Akane surrendered to sleep.

 


	15. Gossip and Chakras

Distant feminine laughter gently dragged Akane from her slumber. Blinking open gummy eyes, she couldn’t help but smile at the sound. Turning onto her back, she started to fling out her limbs in a big stretch, but the sharp pain in her side quickly aborted the movement. _Injured, right…_ she reminded herself as she slowly got up from her sickbed.

After washing her face, using the bathroom, and putting on some new clothing she found folded up on a chair, she felt almost as good as new. Her body barely ached at all.

_At least, that’s what she’d say if anyone asked._ Truth be told, she felt like a herd of zebra with lots of sharp little hooves had stampeded across her body, followed by a pursuing lioness who’d absentmindedly clawed Akane’s side open as she’d leapt after her prey. ~~~~

Nevertheless, she felt better than she had yesterday. Akane was awake, moving around, and not in danger of immediately falling back asleep. After making her bed, she cautiously opened her door. The sounds of female merriment drifted to her ears again. Smiling, she slowly shuffled down the hallway in search of the sound.

Rounding the corner, she walked through an open doorway into bright sunlight. Blinking her eyes a few times, her eyes finally adjusted enough for her to make out a dining room lined with windows. All but one of the tables was empty. From the sounds of the boisterous laughter, Akane had expected at least six people, but in fact, the table only held three women. The only one Akane recognized was Mariko. The other two also looked to be in their forties. They hadn’t noticed her entrance, and continued on with their conversation.

“So then he said, ‘I can crush a beer can with one hand,’ and then, I kid you not, thrust his weedy bicep in front of my face and flexed. Not only did he smell bad, but after all that bragging a muscle only the size of a walnut – _maybe_ \- popped up. I told him that if the size of his bicep matched the size of what he had below, I wasn’t interested.” Raucous laughter punctuated the story, told by an attractive, older-looking blond. Her color had to come from a bottle, considering her black eyebrows and Asian features. 

She continued talking as Akane drifted closer. “Then he tried to grab me, ME, can you believe the nerve! So I collapsed the empty keg next to me with a forefinger, flipped him off, and sauntered away. Poor puppy spent five minutes sulking in a dark corner before slinking off.”

“Men!” exclaimed Mariko with disgust.

“Yes, yes,” remarked the third woman, who had a petite stature and a pixie haircut threaded with gray. “But we all know you, Sachi. You didn’t really succeed in leaving this party alone, did you?”

Akane felt rather confused.  This sounded more like the kind of conversation you’d hear in a hair salon. Yet this was an all-women martial arts shrine with a strict policy _against_ men.

“Even though,” Mariko paused, and then continued in a scarily accurate imitation of Sachi’s voice, “I really am giving up men this time, I mean it! I’ll take my vows the next time I come, come by myself, that is, since I’m giving up men.” All three women snorted and cackled at this, Sachi loudest of all.

“You know me too well!” she howled with mirth as she pounded her fist on the table.

Considering that the youngest of them was probably at least twice as old as Akane, and the feeling that something funny, and probably dirty, had just been said that had gone completely over her head, she felt horribly awkward. Akane wanted to slink back out and return to her room.

Before she could take more than a step back, Mariko looked up, wiped a tear out of her eye, and gestured Akane over. “Our visitor is finally up,” she announced to her friends.

“Excellent!” Sachi exclaimed. “I’ve been wanting to meet you while you were awake.  After taking a punch from you and sensing your aura, I’ve been insanely curious.”

“A punch?” Akane asked with bewilderment as she gingerly took a seat.

“Don’t you remember giving me a love-tap?” inquired Sachi mournfully as she turned fully to face Akane, revealing a fat lip faintly shadowed by purple bruises. “I’d decided to tell the other girls that I got it from kissing someone a little bit too enthusiastically,” she slyly explained, “but I’d hoped that at least you would cherish the truth of our interlude as much as I did.” Then she batted her eyes.

“Um,” Akane replied, a little wide-eyed as she frantically tried to come up with an appropriate response. “I’m sorry and… sorry?”

“Oh, leave the poor girl alone,” pixie-cut scolded with a snort. “She’s been delirious, raving about blood and talking socks of all things.”

_Talking socks?_ Akane mouthed in disbelief and ever-mounting embarrassment.

“Not to mention crystalline gates, cats, and cords,” she added. “That punch was an accident, and you should have been able to avoid it. It’s your own fault for getting lazy in your training. Don’t take your pique out on our guest by making her uncomfortable. She just rose from her sickbed.”

Taking her scolding gracefully, Sachi relaxed into her seat and sent Akane a friendly grin. “Oh, I do know it. I was just teasing, as is my wont.” Then she frowned slightly and continued, “but the cats and cords might not have been all delirium. Her aura did something strange when she was muttering that bit….” Her voice trailed off musingly.

An image of Ranma, Ranko, and a black, feline shadow crowding around her, penning her in with desperate eyes, frantic hands, and sharp teeth skidded across the surface of Akane’s mind. Akane strained to recall more. She remembered that their need had beat at her like a heartbeat, sinking into her veins and pulling forth things she’d tried to bury and deny, trapping her… but not entirely against her will. _Hadn’t that been a dream? Or had it been a buried memory? If it was real… what does that mean?_

“Enough of that,” Mariko said, breaking Akane from her spiraling thoughts. “How are you feeling? We decided to treat you here since Sachi used to be a doctor. She didn’t think we should make you endure hours of bumpy roads to reach the hospital in town. At least, not in your condition, what with the chance of your cut opening even more.”

“Well,” interjected pixie-cut, “that, and the fear that you’d wake up possessed by a demon and try to kill everyone in the hospital.” She shrugged apologetically. “Sachi also said that your aura was off.”

“Off how?” Akane demanded loudly, her voice climbing several octaves.

“I’m not exactly sure,” Sachi said soothingly as she shot an annoyed look at her friend, “but now that you’re awake I can do a reading and let you know. Me and Aoi,” (the name of pixie-cut?), “didn’t get taken since we were away on business. But the other ladies, particularly Mariko, have told us what happened. I’m a little concerned.”

While she’d been speaking, Mariko had disappeared into a side room and returned with a basket full of medical supplies.  Gesturing everyone to come and sit at the table closer to the windows, “where the light is better,” Mariko nudged Akane down onto the bench. “They probably wouldn’t have taken you anyways,” she said to Sachi, “since your grey was showing.”

“Only a few inches!” Sachi protested, stroking her blond locks protectively.

 “And you were looking your real age instead of the one you tell everyone,” Mariko continued. “Their words indicated that they wanted younger women, so I’m sure you would have been fine, even if you had been here.”

Finished mocking her friend, she ignored her outraged huffing and turned to Akane, who’d relaxed during their banter. “I told ‘em what you said about that evil necklace and the strange cat-man you met in the hallway.” Akane held up her shirt without prompting as Mariko began unwrapping her old bandage. “We don’t have anything in our records about an evil necklace that entices people to put it on (though evil necklaces aren’t as uncommon as I’d expected), but there were two vague mentions about cat-like warriors.”

Akane winced a little as the bandage lifted off of her wound. It didn’t stick as badly as she’d feared, but the large areas of crusted blood speckled with yellow and green pus on the fabric made her queasy. She’d never had a wound this severe before.  However, these tough women with their lithe muscles and calloused hands hiding beneath their silly banter were ones that she wanted to impress. Biting her cheek, Akane swallowed and concentrated on remaining stoic.

Moving next to Mariko, Sachi picked up a bottle of foul smelling liquid and some gauze, and began wiping off the slice. “Most of the infection’s receded, thank the Kami,” she muttered. Sucking in a breath, Akane endured the pain and tried not to cry out or flinch away from the seemingly merciless fingers probing and cleaning her wound.

Sitting back, Mariko took up her story. “The records are very old and rather vague, but they do agree on one thing,” she continued. “If you run into a fighter who acts like a cat or possess cat-like features, not just those who mimic feline fighting styles, such individuals are not to be challenged. We’re told to avoid them at any cost. Their very ki has been warped, altered in such a way as to make them both extremely dangerous and almost certainly insane. The two instances mentioned in our records described the fighters as possessing feline features: slit-pupil eyes, tufted ears, even retractable claws and, in one instance, a furred tail. Both histories confirmed that the warriors were known as mediocre fighters for most of their lives until, discontent with their status, they sacrificed something, we don’t know what, to an evil demon. Allowing themselves to be possessed, they became unbeatable warriors. None of our fighters, even those who had mastered our most advanced geometric forms, were able to beat them. In fact, several women died. That’s when the avoidance order came down.”

As Mariko paused for breath, Sachi slathered something sticky onto Akane’s wound. It smelled faintly of honey, sage, and cheese (of all things). Then Sachi wound a clean bandage around Akane’s waist.

Although grateful that the fussing with her side was over, Akane also felt faintly regretful that she’d no longer have anything to distract herself from the bad news.  It didn’t sound like Mariko was about to say that these cat-men had a house up the hillside and were really just misunderstood cosplayers who could be bought off with a mint-condition action figure. And that the necklace had no permanent effects at all as long as you spun around three times and left a seedcake for the local kami. Or did the hokey-pokey naked in a clearing during a new moon.

A bitter smile touched Akane’s lips. “So what does this mean for my situation? Is there something I should do, or can I just return home and forget?”

Sachi took over the narrative. “We don’t know. While you were ill, your aura was muddied by the infection and something else, perhaps a spiritual defense or reaction of some kind.  I’m not sure, since I’ve never seen anything like it before. Now that you’re awake and on the mend, I’d like to examine your aura and see if there is any taint of cat demon, since it seems like that’s what we’re facing.”

Aoi suddenly raised her hand like a schoolgirl. “Um, I hate to bring this up, but what about her red-headed friend, the one who was stalking around acting like a cat? Could she be possessed too? Do we need to worry that she’ll go crazy and attack everyone? I haven’t seen her in hours and I’m a little worried.”

“No! Ranma would never do that!” Akane hotly defended. “He’s cursed by a Chinese spring, so he turns into a girl when hit with cold water, but he’d never harm an innocent.”

Aoi and Sachi, both unaware of this sex-changing tidbit, exclaimed in surprise. Sachi even went so far as to yelp, “She’s a man?” When Mariko didn’t seem to react, already aware of this information, Aoi sent her a betrayed scowl.

Akane bulldozed over their responses and just kept on going. “But he doesn’t have any physical cat traits like you describe those demon possessed warriors as having. His father traumatized him with feral cats when he was a kid, so he just thinks he’s a cat when he runs into other cats. It’s a mental coping mechanism thingy. It’s not his fault!”

Enraged by their accusations, Akane’s voice became even louder, and she found herself standing.  “He doesn’t have a cruel bone in his body. Sometimes he acts like a jerk, but even when mentally a cat, Ranma would never just indiscriminately attack someone. He’s not a demon! Ranma’s the most honorable man I’ve ever known!”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa, calm down,” Mariko ordered Akane.

Then she turned to her friends. “I’ve met the guy, and Ranma doesn’t seem to have any of the physical traits mentioned in the histories. In fact, she woke up last night, turned herself back into a man with the use of a little hot water, and walked herself, I mean _him_ self, down to the men’s shrine with little to no argument. I talked to them this morning on the phone and he hasn’t been a problem at all. In fact,” she snorted, “they’re having a blast with him there. I think he’s just what Akane said, a little messed up in the head, but no serious threat to us.” She sat down calmly and turned back to Akane to finish her thought, “and I don’t think he’s a demon.”

Aoi let her breath out in a loud sigh. “Have you actually ever met anyone possessed by a demon?”

A half-smile danced across Mariko’s lips. “No, but then again, neither have either of you.”

“I think I did once, maybe,” Sachi whispered faintly, and then shook herself sharply. “But I’ve read a good bit about it, especially after I started specializing in reading auras and disorders affecting the spirit. However,” and she gave a half-bow to Mariko, “I’ll accept your diagnosis on this one. I trust your judgments on people. You’re right that he doesn’t match the descriptions in the histories.”

“Also,” Sachi frowned, “when I was in Akane’s sickroom before, Ranma didn’t seem to like me very much. I think she even snickered when Akane punched me, even though she was thinking like a cat at the time.  The bits of Ranma’s aura I sensed did seem unusual, but,” she paused for a second, huffed, and then continued, “I was distracted. The patterns of energy did correspond well to someone suffering a Chinese curse, though. I didn’t even think of it much beyond her being weird, since Akane’s illness and strange aura seemed more urgent. And then there was that punch in the face…. However, I did get the feeling that even if I wanted to, I wouldn’t be able to get Ranma to sit still long enough, or to let down her barriers enough, for me to do a deep reading. I did try to read her at one point, and she gave me such an evil look that, well, it might not be a good idea. At least, not without having to force her and potentially cause her mental pain, which I refuse to do.”

“Very well,” Aoi conceded. “I’ve got work to do anyways, so I’d better get going. I’ll leave things in your capable hands.” Turning, she said, “Nice to meet you, Akane. I hope you feel better, and that _you_ aren’t demon-possessed.” After that disconcerting farewell, she strode out of the room.

Sachi then addressed Akane. “Why don’t you get some food and then meet me in my meditation room. I’d like to hear the story from your own lips, and then read your aura and try to determine if what I sensed before was just a fluke, or if it’s something we need to worry about. I’ll leave your Ranma be for now,” she paused, and then pursed her lips in thought. “Didn’t you say that he’s a young man about your age? Is he very attractive, by chance?”

“What!” Akane exclaimed at her brazen question.

Mariko ignored them both. “I’ll bring her by later,” she confirmed.

Smirking, Sachi twiddled her fingers at them and sauntered out of the room with a saucy swing to her hips.

Right after breakfast, Akane geared herself up for going to see Sachi. Standing up, she took one step and let out a huge yawn. Mariko smiled, shook her head, and took Akane back to her room to take another nap.

It was only after she had woken up, eaten a small snack, and drank her entire mug of medicine plus a few extra pills that Akane finally went to see Sachi. Mariko left her at the door of the meditation room. It was a lovely space, with a few scrolls decorated with calligraphy and ink-drawn mountains hanging on the walls, and shoji screens saturated with afternoon sunlight cracked half-open. Despite her trepidation, Akane felt the knots in her shoulders relax in the peaceful atmosphere.

Gesturing her inside, Sachi performed the tea ceremony and made them both a cup. Then she asked Akane to repeat her story. Akane explained about the kidnapping, the pearls, the cats on the river, her escape from and return to the compound, reinjuring herself on the rat statue, and her strange interaction with the man who looked like he’d been clumsily melded with a cat. 

By the end of her story, Akane felt much more comfortable with Sachi. The woman hadn’t teased or mocked her at all during her story. Instead, she’d been a sympathetic listener, drawing out feelings and impressions from Akane that she’d forgotten. Akane could tell not only that she was a professional healer, but also that she cared. By the end, Akane felt like she could tell Sachi anything. Akane thought that this might be what having a slightly wild but undoubtedly wise Aunt would feel like.

It was with this feeling of trust that Akane closed her eyes and sent herself into a state of meditation.

“At first I’m just going to observe the outer shell of your ki,” Sachi explained in a low and soothing voice. “Then I’m going to put my fingers over some of your chakra points to clarify my readings of your aura.  I’ll warn you before I do this. It won’t hurt, but you might feel some odd sensations. If anything makes you uncomfortable, let me know and I’ll stop.”

Akane peacefully drifted for a few minutes. Then Sachi said, “I’m going to touch you now.” Starting at the base of her spine, Sachi touched each of Akane’s seven chakra points in order. Something inside Akane recoiled slightly at her touch. It urged Akane to move away. Firmly squashing the impulse, Akane took a deep breath and forced positive energy down her spine and into the floor.

“Huh,” said Sachi. “Can you do that again?” Taking another slow and steady breath, Akane cycled the energy up to her crown, back down her body, and into the floor. “Interesting,” Sachi whispered to herself.

“Now, I’m going to mention a series of words,” Sachi instructed, “and I want you to just let your mind go to whatever associations it wants to. Ready?” Then Sachi placed her hands loosely on the sixth and seventh chakras on Akane’s head, which encompassed both understanding and intuition. She started out with several seemingly arbitrary words, “dog, milk, box.” Random thoughts popped into her head with each, but nothing important. Then Sachi moved on to words that either sparked nothing, like the “talking socks,” Aoi had mentioned, or brought on vague and disturbing images of the dreams that had tormented her illness, “frog, rat, bloody hair, hakama.”

Sachi adjusted the position of her fingers. “They were just dreams. They have no power over you. Let them fade,” she murmured. Sighing, Akane obeyed, pushing the dreams to the periphery, until they became mere wraiths.

“You mentioned some other words during your delirium. Let your mind go where it will with each of them.” Then Sachi said the new words, “crystal gate, looping back, panther, mother, collar.” Images flashed across Akane’s mind like a strobe light: a courtyard, shadows, a rainbow handle, tumbling down a hill, and three figures holding her down while they did… something. She couldn’t quite remember.

“That’s very interesting,” Sachi purred. “Something’s there. Go back to those images and try to hold onto them.”

Akane needed no urging as she struggled to fill in the dark gaps between scenes. When had this been? What had happened? It felt like a word hovering on the tip of her tongue, almost but not quite recalled. Her inability to force the images frustrated Akane immensely. Vaguely she noticed Sachi moving her fingers to a different chakra point.

“This is a memory, not a dream, I think,” Sachi said softly. “It seems to be wrapped around both your fourth and fifth chakras, heart and throat. Something’s strange there. Let’s dig a bit deeper.”

Suddenly, Akane felt very uncomfortable. Her throat became tight and her breath became labored. Then she felt a strange, hot flush radiate across her body.

“Ouch!” yelped Sachi, jerking her fingers away from Akane. Startled, Akane opened her eyes to observe Sachi shaking her wrist as if her hand hurt.  “I think something just bit me,” she said in shocked disbelief. “The energy can’t be feline….”

Akane felt uneasiness flit through her body. “It felt weird, but I didn’t do anything, I swear. How is that even possible?” she asked.

Sachi’s lips firmed. “Let’s find out.” Placing her hands back on Akane, she pressed down firmly on each chakra point as she once again moved from the base of the spine to the crown of Akane’s head. She repeated the cycle several times, muttering things like, “strange,” and “another one,” to herself.

Keeping her breathing steady, Akane refused to allow any further deviations by her body. Several times something seemed to writhe within her mental grip, but she refused to falter. Her spirit would not attack Sachi, and neither would anything associated with her spirit. She forbid it.

Finally, Sachi sat back and sighed. “Akane, there seems to be a gap in the fabric of your spirit. This should be impossible, especially since you’re not only alive, but also still sane. Usually only the very recently dead and inmates in insane asylums have gaps like this. Unless you’ve been gibbering at the walls when my back’s been turned?” she suddenly teased in a deadpan delivery.

Akane smiled weakly at her joke. “No, no gibbering. Maybe a shriek or two, but I don’t think those count.”

Sachi rewarded her efforts with a weak smile of her own and then straightened her back. “Here’s what I can tell. You have a gap in your spirit that shouldn’t be there. The edges are also enflamed, as if you’d recently suffered a spiritual assault that tried to make it wider. It was hidden until I repeated that second batch of words I overheard in your sleep.  There are a mess of what you’d probably call spiritual threads patched all over it, with a particularly strong line connected to your heart chakra, looped several times around your throat chakra, and then leaving your body to fade into the distance somewhere, probably connected to the owner of the energy. This energy is very intermixed with your own. I’d be afraid that pulling it all out might just kill you. I’m also not sure that it all belongs to just one individual.”

Clearing her throat, Sachi met Akane’s eyes steadily and continued. “There’s also something else on the surface of your spirit that’s burrowing in, but hasn’t managed to intermix yet like the first set of energy. It’s most concentrated on your navel and throat chakras right now, and so far it’s weak, but there’s a cord stretching from it off into the distance too, and it seems pretty strong, though thinner than the first. Depending on the demon, distance can weaken their influence. I’m not sure if it is the first energy or the second that caused the fissure in your soul and the new damage. I’m not even sure if these energies are connected to your recent kidnapping. I’ve never seen energy patterns like these before. Nothing in the literature mentions a situation like this. I’m assuming one of these is the cat demon you encountered over there, but again, I’m just not sure.”

Akane didn’t know what to say. It all sounded like bad news poured upon more bad news. “So this means that I am possessed by not just one, but several demons,” she repeated in her most even voice. She was almost an adult. She could be rational about this and not freak out. “Can you get rid of them? Exorcise them, I mean, without killing me in the process?”


	16. Femme Fatales and Dark Dimples

Sachi hemmed and hawed over her response, lapsing into metaphysical jargon that lost Akane after only a few words. In the end, though, it all boiled down to, “Right now, I just don’t know.”

_It wasn’t what Akane wanted to hear._

Seeing the look on Akane’s face, Sachi placated, “I’ve shored up your spiritual defenses and set up something that will thin out those lines of outside spiritual influence. It takes some time to work, but should finish clamping down as much as possible sometime in the next hour. You might feel strange when that finally happens, but don’t worry. I’m sorry that I don’t have the power to destroy them completely. I can only minimize them.”

Her tone became more apologetic as she continued, “There’s not much more I can do right now, but a demon would need physical contact to pry those defenses back open. With the ragged state of your spirit, it’s actually better the less that people poke at it. I’d advise you not have anyone else mess with your spiritual fabric either. Like a well-used sweater, too much tugging could cause the whole thing start unraveling. If that happens, there might not be enough of a pattern left to knit your spirit back together.” Tilting her head to the side, she tapped her fingernail to her teeth a few times before continuing with a disturbing gleam of scientific interest, “which could possibly turn you into a soulless golem. That or messing with it could fundamentally alter your personality and memories forever, though whether you’d skew towards childishness, dementia, or psychopathy is hard to predict. In fact, it might be best if you try not to talk or think or even look at pictures of demons until I get back to you. Avoid demons all together. Just in case.”

The older woman, finally noticing the horror on Akane’s face, added with a wave of her hand, “But don’t worry! Once you’re back in Tokyo, you shouldn’t notice any problems.”

_That’s it?_ Shouldn’t _notice any problems?_ “So what do I do?” Akane demanded, scared and trying desperately not to show it.

Placing a hand on Akane’s knee supportively, Sachi glibly replied, “Live your life and try not to worry too much. Go home, have fun, flirt with cute boys and,” she winked at Akane, “be a normal kid.”

Akane felt a volcano go off in her head at the flippancy of the advice. Earlier, she’d just wanted to go home and forget everything, but that was before she knew that she’d been possessed by demons. This called for action, not blind hope. Just who did Sachi think Akane was?

“I’m not a _normal kid_!” Akane burst out angrily, rising up on her heels and shaking off Sachi’s condescending hand pats. The older woman merely sat back and raised an eyebrow calmly, as if chastising Akane for proving her immaturity by yelling.

Sucking in a deep breath through her nose, Akane exhaled through pursed lips and called upon all of her techniques to manage her anger enough to calm down and make this woman _understand_. But how did she encapsulate the insanity of her life to someone who hadn’t seen any of it, to someone who’d barely even met any of the players?

“I know I’m not an adult yet,” Akane began unsteadily, “but I’m not a child either. My life hasn’t been normal in years. I’m almost 18,” her voice rose passionately as she pointed her finger in emphasis, “and in my almost 18 years, I’ve fought monsters and kami. I’ve been hurt and I’ve hurt others, both accidentally and on purpose. I’ve won challenges, lost battles, been kidnapped, protected others, been drowned, lost loved ones to death, made allies out of enemies, almost gotten married, several times in fact, been possessed by a vengeful spirit doll and now possessed by demons. I’ve been forced to make hard choices, both good and bad, these last few years.” Akane felt like each word was clawing out of her throat as she spoke, deeply buried experiences exposed to the air, ricocheting around the room only to skitter back over her raw nerves and dig down into her flesh like a swarm of insects retreating from the light back into the burrow of her memories.

“I died,” she bit out finally, “and I came back. I am not just some _normal_ _kid_.” Throat raw and chest heaving, Akane waited for the older woman’s response.

Eyes wide and smile wiped clean, Sachi responded. “I did not mean to belittle you or your challenges.” The older woman inclined her head apologetically, “Please keep in mind that you’re less than half my age. Perhaps I made some assumptions based on that. I don’t know all of the trials that your life has held, but I do realize that you aren’t a child. I can see your strength, Akane: strength of body, spirit, and heart. I hope that one day you’ll have time to share some of your stories with me, good or bad. I’d love to hear them.” Finishing, Sachi inclined her head respectfully.

Releasing a trembling sigh, Akane sat back down on her heels. Slightly uncomfortable silence filled the room. “The weather is beautiful today, ne?” she awkwardly remarked.

Sachi quirked an eyebrow but smiled and went along with the change in subject. “Yes, it is. In fact, this is perfect weather for sitting outside pretending to do work so you can fall asleep accidentally instead.” Akane snorted as the other woman continued talking. “This meditation room is my favorite at this time of day though, even better than outside when one seeks for calmness. I love the sparkle of dust in the sunbeams, and the serenity and strength emanating from the simple art on the scrolls.” Sharing a smile, the two women mutually decided to let now comfortable silence wash through the room as they sat and enjoyed the beauty of the day.  

Sometime later Sachi roused, cocked her head to the side, and tossed Akane an inviting smile. “I just want you to remain optimistic,” she began. Akane let herself smile back, and Sachi’s smile widened into a grin. “And don’t throw away the beauty of your youth! You’ll regret it when you’re my age, no matter what challenges you currently face. Don’t worry about something we can’t change just yet. For all we know, it might never get worse than it is right now. Distance really does help to attenuate the influence of these things.”

Giving Akane a quick once-over with unfocused eyes, Sachi touched her finger lightly to Akane’s chest as she continued, “It looks like you’ve been living with some form of spiritual disruption for a while now without noticing any problems. Just from the few things you listed, the disruption could have come from that vengeful doll possession, your drowning, a spiritual attack during battle, a magical spell, your death and subsequent return, or even something else you’ve gone through but not mentioned. You’ve lived a crazy life already, and I don’t know enough to say. I’m not even 100% sure that the more recent damage was definitely caused here in Okinawa. However, I do know one thing.” Pausing, she laid her hand flat over Akane’s chest before continuing, “You’ll survive this challenge just like you have all of the rest because you have a strong heart, Akane. I _can_ see that clearly in you.”

Sachi’s mouth quirked, “Keep doing your best, avoid touching any demons, and stay positive. I am on your side, we all are here. I’ll keep researching this and get back to you the minute I know anything, all right?”

Akane nodded. Sachi was right. She needed to keep a good attitude about this until they knew more. You could lose a battle before it had begun with a bad attitude. This was one battle she had no intention of losing. Akane was going to survive.

Focusing back on Akane’s face, Sachi dropped her hand and suddenly changed from serious to frivolous. “Don’t forget that you are still a young woman, so go home and remember to flirt with cute boys! I know we don’t have time for your entire life story, but,” she winked teasingly, “I have just one question about your ‘almost getting married, several times.’” Her smirk widened at Akane’s sudden blush, “you were the femme fatale in those scenarios, weren’t you?”

“Whaa-at? No!” Akane exclaimed as Sachi dissolved into laughter, tittering behind her raised hand like an anime villainess.

Tension broken, Akane allowed Sachi to chivvy her to her feet and lead her back to the kitchen with more teasing, including requests for photos and phone numbers of Akane’s castoffs so Sachi could “console” them.  Handing Akane a peach from the larder, Sachi then sent her out a side door into the garden with instructions to go, “relax in the sun and work on your tan. After all,” she trilled, “you need to look less pasty if you want to keep almost getting married, several _more_ times.” Rolling her eyes and sticking her tongue out at Sachi’s mocking, Akane obeyed. And if the thought of seeing Ranma again with color instead of pallor coloring her cheeks quickened Akane’s steps, that was no one’s business but her own.

Finding a soft spot of grass outside, Akane sat down and took a bite out of her peach. She licked the delicious juice from her lips and turned her face up into the sun. Warm sunlight lapped against her skin soothingly.

However, she only had a few moments to quietly enjoy herself. Over the course of the next few minutes, a creeping headache gained strength until it became a crippling ice pick attacking her temple. Exhaustion and pain from the wound in her side crested inexorably as well, until she could barely stand the waves of discomfort.

In fact, she didn’t remember being this physically drained even when she’d first woken up in the temple. Peach barely eaten, Akane let it drop to her side and lay back in the grass with an arm flung over her eyes. _Did this have something to do with Sachi pinching down those cords of outside spiritual influence?_ She had said that it would feel a bit strange, but this felt awful.  

Beyond the physical sensations, Akane also, weirdly enough, felt incredibly… lonely. _Don’t be stupid_ , she scolded herself halfheartedly. _The pain is just making you feel sorry for yourself._ Breathing carefully though the pain, she fled into the oblivion of sleep.

* * *

 

            Earlier that morning down the mountain at the male temple, Ranma Saotome was finally figuring out the use of geometry. He’d barely slept the night before. Instead, he’d been engrossed with practicing how calculating length, area, and volume translated into new skills. The monks down here had been great about helping him out.

            Because of Ranma’s years of training, and maybe because he’d managed to stay awake lately in math class, he was quickly picking up the techniques. Some of the things they did consciously he was already doing instinctively, like calculating the angles of his limbs compared to the volume and angles of an opponent’s body to maximize damage with each hit. Though to be honest, a lot of this style seemed like too much overthinking to Ranma.

Although a couple of the old fogies could still wipe the floor with him, he was quickly picking things up. Several senior monks who’d beaten him the night before found themselves eating dust before breakfast the next day. Not that he was keeping track or anything. Or that he was boasting about it. _Heh_.

The advanced forms of this style focused on sensing and disrupting ki. Their approach to the spiritual side seemed a lot less intuitive and a lot more formulaic than what Ranma had learned lately from Cologne. Often the complex equations they mentioned went right over his head. He’d never been very school smart, especially since he’d missed so much class while travelling with his Pops. But by concentrating on the application of those equations, like how the monk’s bodies and auras behaved as they performed katas, he slowly began to understand.

After a few hours of intensive focus, something finally clicked. Half-understood diagrams from the chalkboard at school suddenly made sense in terms of these martial arts. Things that Ranma had never quite understood about spiritual energy also began slotting into place. His teacher, far from being pleased, simply chose to ramp up his training and expectations.

“Careful,” admonished Kazuya-san, the elderly monk assigned to teach Ranma that morning. “You need to push your aura out evenly into a sphere, both grounded underneath the earth and soaring above yourself into the sky. I said evenly!” he snapped, poking at Ranma’s side with a sharp tendril of ki. “No bulges, no skimming the ground, and no ovals. Those won’t work! They’re like eggs, one good hit and your aura will crack open. ” Grimacing at the sharp poke, Ranma concentrated on tucking in the edges of his aura to be more uniform.

“When I was a novitiate, they used to throw rotten eggs at us every time our edges bulged,” Kazuya-san reminisced. “The smell got so bad, one of my brothers passed out and broke his nose falling onto his face. We started to envy him, because he couldn’t smell anything for a week,” he cackled as he continued to circle Ranma. An unexpected second poke made Ranma twitch unwittingly and his aura again wavered, but on the third attack, the sphere of Ranma’s aura finally deflected it.

Kazuya-san hummed in satisfaction. “Alright boy, now just do what we showed you this morning, use the edges to calculate the radius and then your current spiritual volume.” Carefully going through the mental steps he’d learned, Ranma tried to figure out how to internalize the new sensation of self/not-self provided by objects inside and outside of his aura.  He also struggled to remember if the equation for calculating the volume of a sphere from a radius was V = ⁴⁄₃πr³ or not.

As the old monk began pelting Ranma with pebbles, punches, and weak ki attacks, Ranma realized that he could sense things sneaking up from behind better than ever before. After almost an hour, he figured out how to push out several ki attacks to areas around his body without concentrating the energy first in his hands. They were weak though. He was still hit and miss for the calculations required to get the angles right. There must be tables of angles and cubed numbers he could memorize so he wouldn’t have to calculate things fresh each time.

But he’d have to work on mastering that later, once he’d returned to Nerima with Akane. Maybe he’d also have to try harder to stay in math class instead of holding buckets in the hallway, though he’d had fewer problems with that this last year. He didn’t have Akane in as many of his classes. At least he still got to see her after school when they returned home.

Of course, all that would change once he graduated. If they weren’t married by then, his mother would insist they move back in with her. So far, Pops had convinced her to let them keep on living at the Tendo dojo by using the excuse that the school was too far away for Ranma to commute.

He loved his mother, but he didn’t really know her. She didn’t really need him. For years she’d done just fine without the men of the family. If he could live with her without abandoning Akane, he’d do it. But Akane came first. It might sound cold, but at the root of it, Ranma had lived away from his mother for so long that he didn’t really need her either.

But Akane was different. Akane was vulnerable. She gave her trust and heart too freely, allowed the opinions of others to hurt her, and never put her own safety or happiness first. Akane needed him. Maybe Akane thought she didn’t need him, but Ranma knew better. In fact, he was betting his sanity on that fact.

“Pay attention!” Kazuya-san snapped, right before blasting Ranma off of his feet.

_Stop obsessing over Akane and focus_ , Ranma scolded his psyche. Shaking off thoughts of Akane for the hundredth time since he’d left her alone the night before, Ranma apologized and reset his spherical aura.  After a few more passes, the old monk finally allowed him to take a break.

“You are picking this up quicker than I expected from someone who looks like you do,” the old monk half-praised.

“What’s that suppose ta mean, ya old bag?” Ranma fired back.

A sharp spike of ki poked Ranma’s side. “I told you to always use honorifics with me, you ungrateful whelp! Call me Kazuya- _san_ or I’ll poke you worse.” He sniffed haughtily, “Also, it means you aren’t quite as dumb as you look. Of course, that isn’t saying much as you do have quite doltish features, so I set my expectations really low.” While Ranma sputtered at the insult, Kazuya-san continued, “Not everyone can be as intelligent and good looking as me though, so don’t take it too hard.” He then smoothed his hand lovingly over wrinkled skin which possessed more age spots than a speckled egg.

Ranma snorted and rolled his eyes hard enough to hurt. “You’re blind as a bat is what you are if you can’t see that I’m both extremely handsome _and_ intelligent looking. Also, everyone is more good looking than an old goat like you,” he mocked.

Kazuya-san responded with the promised painful poke of ki. “Ow!” Ranma yelped. “Would you stop it already? We ain’t sparrin’ no more.”

Snorting in reply, the old monk said, “What are you, some western fencer always expecting people to announce, ‘En garde’ before attacking? I thought you said you were used to unexpected attacks and _anything goes_. Grow a pair, sonny.”

Settling down onto his heels, Kazuya-san ignored both Ranma’s, “Yes, Sensei,” and his half-hidden rude gesture serenely. Clearing his throat, he resumed lecturing. “Here at the temple, we concentrate on uniting into precise shapes the concrete nature of our bodies with the amorphous nature of our spirits.  The more precisely you can control the position of each and reflect their natures off of each other, the more powerful and quickly you can execute an attack.”

Kazuya began gesturing expansively. “If you can convince your body that it is amorphous, your foes will find it easier to capture a single mote of dust than to touch your body. If you can convince your spirit it is concrete, your foes will find their flesh shredded as easily as you now shred paper. It is a matter of precise calculations, self-awareness, and strength of will. If you can unflinchingly confront every ignoble corner of your own spirit, if you can identify your own body when shown only the shape of a mole in the middle of your back… you might have a chance to master martial arts geometry.”

The old man lifted up his robe and pointed to a bony ankle. “I cut myself this morning when I kicked a stick out of my path. Watch my aura carefully, and learn what you can of it.” 

As Ranma focused intently, he saw the monk’s aura swarm down to the injured ankle. The energy formed a barely sensed geodesic cuff made of pentagons and hexagons. Then suddenly, the shapes in the cuff turned into equilateral triangles and the image of the cuff solidified. Ranma watched in amazement as the shift in energy caused the raw edges of the monk’s flesh to smooth together. Soon only a faint scar remained.  A few seconds later, the cuff dissipated until it could no longer be seen, and the energy redistributing around the monk’s body.

“The head of our order can do this with large wounds without leaving any scars,” he shared.

“How does that work?” Ranma asked, leaning forward eagerly. “How do I do it? Can you teach me now?”

Kazuya-san sent him a quelling look, “It takes decades of careful study to master this technique. You see, when you have achieved geometrical unity, your body becomes used to being at congruent angles with your spirit.” Gesturing at his ankle he explained, “When the flesh is wounded but the spirit uninjured, your spirit can convince your body that both are unwounded and whole, restoring congruence.”

It probably would take more than a few hours for Ranma to pick up something that complicated, along with a glossary of geometry terms, but he seriously doubted he would need decades. He might not be good at book smarts, but he was great at training and picking up new techniques. Ranma could master this if he had the time.

It just depended on how much time was left before Akane felt well enough to return to Nerima. They couldn’t stay too long. Nevertheless, Ranma was determined to master as much as he could before leaving. Besides which, focusing on the really hard stuff helped to keep his mind off of Akane, sick and alone up at the women’s temple.

As the Sensei droned on about geometric theory, Ranma found his eyes drooping as a vision of Akane sitting up in her sickbed yesterday drifted into his thoughts. Shaking his head sharply, Ranma stifled a yawn and tried to get his mind off of his fiancée and back on his training.

Ever since he’d woken up yesterday, he’d felt more sluggish than usual and his side ached persistently even though there was nothing physically wrong with it. If any of the monks asked, he’d blame it on lingering effects of the kidnapping a few days ago, or on his lack of sleep the night before. That’s what he’d say, but it wasn’t the truth.

As soon as he’d left Akane at the women’s temple the night before, he’d noticed that the spiritual cord binding them together was stronger than ever. He could sense not only Akane’s location, but even vaguely feel the ache of her lingering sickness. Remembering how he’d stolen energy from her in the dojo, Ranma did his best to do the reverse. Thinking about the spiritual cord stretching between them, he tried to pump his strength in her direction, like refilling a tank of gas.

_Did the twinge in his side come from Akane? Perhaps she’d strained a muscle coughing or been bruised when kidnapped?_ He wished he knew, but at the same time he was too ashamed to ask. That she got hurt at all was his fault. The trickle down pain was only what he deserved as he pushed his energy into her body. At least in this small way, he could be useful to Akane. Even if she didn’t consciously know it.

Ranma was Akane’s fiancé. He would give her anything. If she’d take it, he would give her everything. Akane could claim his strength and body as rightfully hers, and he wished that she would. Because everything he had was hers and if she took it, didn’t that mean she had to know that she had the right to take it? Wouldn’t using him mean that she acknowledged that Ranma belonged to her, and by default that she belonged to Ranma?

Sighing roughly, Ranma forced himself to face reality. She might never claim him, never want him the way he wanted her. He might have destroyed that chance already through his own thoughtlessness, cutting down the bud of her affections early in their acquaintance before he had even realized how precious and necessary the flowering of those affections would be. It might already be too late. It might be years too late. But he still wasn’t ready to give up on the dream of Akane. Those few things he loved, he loved passionately. He might have retreated to regroup, but the fight wasn’t over yet.

Perhaps he needed to storm up the mountainside and give her words of truth, however personally embarrassing. Would flaying open his feelings on the altar of her capricious understanding gain him her heart? She could be so thoughtlessly cruel when unsure, and anger brought out the worst in her, however breathtaking it made the sparkle in her eyes or the flush in her cheeks. Perhaps an honest declaration would work.

Or perhaps not. Maybe the opposite was called for. He would not do anything dishonorable, but there were many shades of gray. Ranma could cheat and lie if it would win him Akane. In the past, he had even cheated and lied to Akane. Sometimes it served to protect Akane, and other times it helped Ranma protect himself from things like her toxic cooking, thoughtless words, and angry mallet. Perhaps the right clever lie would win this battle for her heart.

After all, some level of deception during competition was normal for him. He almost never showed everything he was capable of in a fight, as being underestimated kept things interesting and gave him an advantage. The last time he had revealed everything he was capable of, a kami had died. The phoenix kami’s rebirth was merely luck.

Just because deception had not won him Akane yet, did not mean it never would. Maybe his determination to come clean down here in Okinawa, away from everyone else, had been what caused this massive blunder and her sickness in the first place. The spirits knew he didn’t have much practice with honesty.  Perhaps this was a sign for him to try something else. Ranma would have to think on it.

Whatever happened in the future, he would always take care of Akane. It was his right. Because it didn’t matter if he was a man or a woman or a cat, every particle of his being had accepted this truism – Akane was _his_!  

Wrenching his thoughts away from Akane again, Ranma forced himself to listen to the monk explaining more ki techniques. He wanted to learn this. If only Akane would quit invading his thoughts. “Before you can manipulate your ki to attack or heal, you must expand your powers of spiritual observation. Make a spherical aura,” he commanded. When Ranma complied, he continued, “Now, bounce just a squirt of ki off the edge of your aura.  This will allow you to sense not only an opponent, but the position and condition of your own body and spirit.”

As Ranma began experimenting, he discovered that if he used too much power, he simply blasted through his own spiritual circumference. If he used too little, the power would dissipate around his body. When he finally managed it for the first time, he only had a moment to triumph.

Then out of nowhere a feeling of extreme peril swamped him. Instinctively, something deep within himself responded with a ki attack towards the threat that… never materialized. Startled by his own actions, Ranma lost focus.

It took him several minutes to shake off those strange feelings enough to correctly calculate the angles needed for the technique. Finally, he managed to get it. This time, there were no strange feelings. He cautiously began to examine himself. It was a view of himself that he’d never seen before. This worked sort of like sonar and sort of like discerning all of the angles in a complex shape or diagram with only a few clues. The calculations were giving him flashbacks of pop-quizzes in math.

Once he got it, the monk began throwing attacks and splashes of water at Ranma to test his control. When he managed the calculations right, he could align his spiritual energies and physical senses to better detect opponents in his blind spots. He could also produce more powerful attacks with less effort. But what actually unsettled Ranma was how, when done right, he could see for the first time his own mental shields and the variegated patchwork of foreign magics swirling inside his spirit.

The Jusenkyo curse seemed like water contained in a bucket, sloshing around to drench every corner of his spirit, sinking down beneath the surface in hiding while he was in his male form, and splashing out to overwhelm him with monsoon waves whenever he touched cold water and became female. Less showy was the curse on his hair to grow, constrained by the dragon’s whisker. It had gotten weaker over the years, and indeed seemed pale and sluggish compared to the energetic curse of Jusenkyo. Seeing it, Ranma had hopes that it would soon fade completely. Of course, after a second glance he realized that it was being cannibalized by something else lurking in his spirit. But whether for good or ill, Ranma couldn’t tell. Wisps of dark energy siphoned off deeper into his ki where he couldn’t see. His mastery of this technique was not good enough yet.

Moving on, he noted other bits here and there clinging to his spirit, remnants of far travels, strange meetings, and crazy battles. And then there were the things he could blame on his crazy Pops, like that strange dark dimple in his aura. To examine it, he had to look at it sideways instead of directly. He tried to tell himself that it wouldn’t hold still in his mind otherwise, but truthfully, he was afraid to see it too clearly. It scared him.

Even barely seen, he knew it. That mysterious darkness belonged to the trauma and power of the Cat Fist. He could almost see something primitive, ravenous, and still wounded lurking beneath the thin skin of that dimple, ready to come clawing out in the presence of a cat, bloated with secret memories hoarded away from his conscious mind. Maybe even just the weight of his fearful focus would be enough pressure to split open the fragile skin caging that animalistic rage. Quivering, Ranma’s concentration abruptly broke.

Breathing heavily, he pretended to be thirsty as an excuse to ask for a break. Kazuya-san had something knowing in his eyes during the prevarication, but he still released Ranma to his own devices until after lunch. “Remember, to master one’s inner self leads to external mastery,” he said before walking off.

Picking up a bucket of ice cold well water, Ranma closed his eyes and poured it over his head. Ranma hated cats. He hated being afraid.  And he hated what he’d just started to suspect, for as he’d turned ( _ran_ ) away from observing that small dark pit in his aura, out of the corner of his eye he’d seen something flicker. Coming out of the edge of that dark dimple, he could have sworn he saw a spiritual cord stretching up the mountainside towards the women’s temple… towards Akane.

Gasping at the chill, Ranko shook her head wildly, flinging off a spray of water droplets. _Could his newfound sense of Akane really come from something so despised as the Cat Fist?_ As she dropped the bucket back down next to the well, Ranko suddenly realized that she suddenly didn’t feel tired anymore. _Magical well water,_ she wondered, _or becoming female_?  

Then Ranko noticed that all of her aches and pains had disappeared too, like the persistent one in her side. Of course, tripping on the heels of that thought, she remembered that the ache in her side hadn’t been her own. It had been Akane’s. Not only had the ache disappeared, but so had Ranko’s sense of her position up the mountain.

Grasping a nearby teapot holding the dregs of the hot water used during their sparring match, she found it just lukewarm enough for her purposes. A quick splash turned Ranma back into a man. However, it didn’t bring back his sense of Akane.

Fear swelled.

Ranma’s awareness of Akane had flickered in the past, but he now realized that even at its weakest he’d maintained a faint sense of her presence. That faint pulse was gone. Besides which, ever since he’d woken up yesterday the connection to her had been completely open, consistent, and stronger than ever. He supposed that it could just be a return to the former unpredictable status quo.

_But what if it wasn’t? What if something had happened to Akane? She had been sick when he’d left her yesterday. What if she’d taken a turn for the worse? What if she’d died?_ Ignoring the crack of the teapot as he flung it carelessly aside, Ranma turned and raced up the mountain towards the women’s temple.


	17. The reverse side of the mirror

When Ranma finally neared the temple, he saw a group of female monks clustered around the front gate. Slowing to a jog, he noticed three men in the center of the group. They were being pummeled to within an inch of their lives. The angry auras the women were projecting sent a shiver of fear down his spine as he flashed back to similar group beatings from his “loving fiancées.” 

From what he could hear from their yelling, the men had tried to enter the female temple despite the prohibition. “It was an accident! We got lost!” shouted one of the men. “Stop hitting me!” wailed another as he slapped ineffectively at the arms and legs surrounding his cowering form.

Whether they’d made a true mistake or were lying to escape the beating, Ranma didn’t know. The women didn’t seem to care. The shouted excuses didn’t slow down their punishment at all.

Carefully bypassing the mob at the front gate, Ranma ran stealthily towards the window of the room Akane had been staying in. Leaping up to crouch on the sill, he sent a questing gaze around the room. His inspection revealed a tidy futon, barely any furniture, and no Akane. Only her worn pack leaning in the corner confirmed that she’d really been here.

He was probably overreacting. Most likely Akane was just fine. Once he found her, she’d probably yell at him for worrying and thinking that she was weak. He just had to find her so he could get yelled at. Then his heart could calm down and stop trying to leap out of his chest through his throat.

Asking a female monk for directions might be quickest way to find Akane, but it would probably backfire. Their restrictions against the opposite sex were very strict. Even the woman helping Akane, Mariko, had quickly ejected him from the temple when he’d become male again.

No, asking wouldn’t do any good. They would just kick him out without listening to his fears, especially considering they were already riled up by the men at the front gate. He thought about trying to con or sweet talk one of the younger ones into helping him, but none of the women were alone. The disturbance up front had them all traveling in packs. It was better to just avoid them all, he decided.

Admittedly, he didn’t want to explain to anyone why he was looking for Akane. The spiritual cord that linked him to Akane was private. It was no one else’s business. It especially wasn’t anyone’s business whether a cord between them was appropriate or not. Ranma needed that cord back, because if he had it, he wouldn’t have to run around trying to find her. He’d _know_ where Akane was and that she was fine.

Several minutes of searching later, Ranma gave up on not asking for help. He was willing to humble himself. Within reason. Of course, this would work better if he was a girl.

Looking into rooms and open windows with impatience, Ranma tried to find some cold water to activate his curse. If he was female they couldn’t kick him out for just asking a question. But cold water proved to be just as elusive as answers about Akane. Too many female monks lingered around the well in the courtyard and the kitchen pots for him to get close undetected.

Normally Ranma couldn’t avoid cold water to save his life. When he really needed it though, it was nowhere to be found. Right now he couldn’t even find a puddle or forgotten cup of tea.

After several more minutes spent frantically searching and dodging female monks, Ranma felt his grasp on rational thought slipping. Yet in all of his eavesdropping, no one had mentioned being worried about Akane. They’d notice if something was wrong, wouldn’t they? Whatever the case, just running around searching wasn’t working. He needed a new strategy, or he was going to grab the next pack of women and demand they take him to Akane _and damned the consequences_.

Ranma slipped through a half-open shoji into a softly lit room. It had a few scrolls decorated with calligraphy and ink-drawn mountains hanging on the walls. Something about the room felt strangely familiar, as if he could feel a weak echo of one of his ki attacks. But he’d never been in here before, much less fought anyone here. He’d swear to that… unless he’d been a cat at the time.

A teapot, whisk, and two clay cups sat forgotten on a tray against the far wall. Catching his breath hopefully, he dismissed his musings and snatched up the teapot. He tipped it over his head but only a single drop splashed out onto his forehead. The skin tingled, but his body remained male. He tried both teacups next, but neither of them contained more than a damp film. It took more restraint than he expected to keep from flinging the entire tray through the shoji and into the nearest pack of female monks.

Slumping down into a corner, Ranma fisted his hands in his hair, clutched his head, and growled. He needed to calm down for a second and try to sense Akane again. Blowing air out between pursed lips, he searched his ki. However the spiritual tie between them still remained elusive. _Had it disappeared altogether or simply gone into hiding?_

Suddenly, a thought padded into the forefront of his mind. Earlier he’d suspected that the ephemeral cord leading towards Akane was rooted behind the dark dimple in his aura shielding the Cat Fist. If the cord was still attached there, even if diminished, maybe he could find it and follow it back to Akane.

For a second he wavered in indecision and fear. There had to be another way. Maybe the female monks would answer his questions if he just spoke quickly enough. Confronting the source of the Cat Fist couldn’t be the only way.

Disputing his hopes, he distantly heard a man scream, “I’m sorry!” amid a chorus of female hooting and cheering.

Firming his lips, Ranma settled himself into a lotus position on the floor and placed his hands on his thighs palm up. To settle his mind he looked at the lines of calligraphy painted on the scroll across the room, **裏には裏があ** **る**. ‘The reverse side also has a reverse side.’ Ranma forced his anxious breathing to slow. Quickly he dropped into a meditative state.

_I can, no, I_ WILL _do this._

Ranma needed to find Akane. He had to make sure that she was alright, because if she wasn’t… well, she had to be alright. Nothing else was acceptable. Ranma wouldn’t allow Akane to die, not again. He wanted to find her, so she would be found.

Failure was inconceivable.

Using the new geometric technique he’d learned just that morning, he slid sideways inside his spirit and formed a sphere with his aura. Answers to the complex calculations leapt to the forefront of his mind almost before he formulated the equations, as if his subconscious was subtly guiding him. He didn’t care how he found the way though, just that it worked.

Releasing his energy, he sensed it bouncing off his aura into a series of angled reflections that almost immediately illuminated the dark dimple he sought with the precision of a spotlight. It was a part of him, a part that let him keep Akane leashed to his soul, and for that alone he would not only face this fear, but embrace this inner darkness. Not giving the terrified gibbering in the back of his mind time to gain momentum, Ranma rammed his will against that dark dimple in his aura until it split open like overripe fruit.  

Falling into it, he found himself buffeted on all sides until vertigo consumed him. When he regained his senses, he could no longer separate spiritual perception from physical sensation. For all intents and purposes, he had trapped himself inside his own mind.

Fear and bravado battled in his mind, but there didn’t seem to be a clear way back to the calm room with scrolls and shoji where he’d started this. Swallowing his fear, Ranma latched onto bravado. Then he strode forward into the dark.

At first, it felt like he had landed in a muddy cave. Moving forward blindly across the squishy ground, he found the fluid getting deeper and deeper, until it seemed he was pushing his way through a chest-high river of warm pus. Breathing shallowly through his nose, Ranma tried not to gag. He only lasted until a rough arm movement splashed the fluid up onto his cheek. That was the last straw.

Leaning to the side, he vomited. It only added to the foul stench and disgusting feeling. Barely keeping his footing through the painful heaves, he forced his way deeper into the darkness. Finally, the foul liquid receded and he found himself of dry ground. Collapsing onto all fours, he let himself rest for a minute before moving on.

After an indeterminable period of walking, his clothing dried. More walking, and then he began to feel phantom touches. No matter how quickly he turned to grasp at them, he never caught anything. Nevertheless, the touches became stronger. Soon they turned into brushes of wiry fur across his skin and the pinprick of claws and sharp teeth. Menacing feline sounds began echoing in the darkness.

Hyperventilating, Ranma tried to run away. He would have escaped back to the surface if he could. But the darkness was absolute, and there were no walls to follow. He didn’t know which way to go. No matter which way he turned, he only encountered more empty darkness. The sense of hissing and yowling grew louder as the touches became more firm. He couldn’t even escape into the oblivion of becoming a cat, because right now he was already in the part of his memory and spirit containing the Cat Fist.

For a brief second, he thought he imagined the sound of gentle purring and an excited trill beneath the fearsome racket. But it seemed too foreign, too strange amidst the terrifying bombardment. He listened, but it didn’t repeat. Ranma dismissed it as a delusion.

Suddenly out of the corner of his eye, he saw a glimmer of light. As soon as Ranma leapt towards it, he ran smack into a wall and bounced back onto the floor. Reaching out, the wall felt cool and smooth, like glass.  The light became brighter and brighter, until Ranma had to squint his eyes closed and cover them with his hands.

All sounds and sensations ceased.

In the silence, Ranma opened his eyes. He saw a pale, dark-haired man with sapphire eyes standing in front of him. Blinking at the spots pulsing in his eyes from the abrupt transition from dark to light, Ranma noticed that there the light came from a small, circular opening above the other man’s head. Something about it seemed familiar, but he couldn’t place it. Wary, Ranma stepped back to give himself some room. The man stepped back at the same time. As the spots dissipated from his eyes, Ranma looked more closely.

_Idiot._

It wasn’t just any figure, it was Ranma himself. He was standing in front of a mirror.  _Are you scared of your own reflection now?_ he scoffed at himself.

Letting out a shuddering breath, Ranma shook tension out of his arms and tried to don his usual cocky facade. As he looked away from the mirror though, he couldn’t see anything else around himself but the pale floor he stood on, stretching off into the distance on all sides.  Looking up, he couldn’t see a ceiling either, just darkness.

Ranma looked back at the mirror, then at the ceiling, then back at the mirror. The light source he’d noticed in the mirror wasn’t above or behind him. _So was it just hidden from his eyes, or did it only exist inside the mirror itself?_

Taking a few steps back, Ranma ran forward and leaped up towards where the circle of light should be according to the reflection. His reaching fingers felt nothing. He tried several more times, but as far as he could tell, there was nothing there. That, or he just couldn’t jump high enough.

Circling the mirror, he tried to figure out what to do next. Ranma glanced over at his reflection, paused, and asked, “Any bright ideas?” Of course the image didn’t answer. “I need to find Akane,” Ranma told it. “That’s why I’m here.” Meeting his eyes in the mirror, he vowed, “I’ll do whatever it takes to find her, to keep her safe, to make sure she’s still alive. Whatever it takes.”

Nothing happened, but something about his reflection began to make Ranma feel unsettled. Shrugging, he looked away and resumed pacing. As much as he’d hated the feline cacophony, the current silence still felt creepy.  Nevertheless, he had to get out of here if he was going to find Akane.

Ranma felt like he had to be missing something else, something in addition to the strange light source that only existed inside the mirror. _But what?_   As he once again vainly searched the area for some new object or exit, he found his attention flitting past his elongated shadow stretching across the floor.   He didn’t think anything of it, until he realized that no matter where he moved in his searching, the shadow stayed in the same place.

Trying to hide the sudden ratcheting up of his tension, Ranma turned to look down at his feet. It took him a moment to realize the problem. He wasn’t casting a shadow.

Slowly he raised his gaze to the mirror. His reflected face looked wary. The image in front of him appeared exactly as it should… except for one thing. Although Ranma didn’t have a shadow, his reflection did. And the shadow starting at the feet of his doppelganger had crept out of the image in the mirror and stretched across the floor until it almost reached Ranma.

Doing a double-take, Ranma saw the shadow seeping quickly across the floor like an overflowing puddle of midnight.  Right before the shadow engulfed Ranma’s foot, he realized that it wasn’t in the shape of a man. The shadow was in the shape of a gigantic cat.

_Ca-ca-cat!_ shrieked his mind.

Tensing to spring away, he flicked a terrified look up at his reflection. But now Ranma’s reflection didn’t look scared. Instead, his doppelganger’s lips pulled back to reveal far too many sharp teeth and a wickedly satisfied smirk.

Ranma wanted to run away and hide, wanted to jump forward and pulverize the mirror into powder. But before he could act one way or the other, the first wave of shadow lapped against his foot. Immediately his body became leaden. Just that fleeting touch had paralyzed his body.

“Whatever it takes,” his reflection purred at his silent struggle.

Then the cat shadow began climbing up Ranma’s body, phantom claws slicing rents across his flesh. The gaping wounds hurt, made him vulnerable. Ranma could somehow tell that their purpose wasn’t to draw blood out, it was to make space for something else to crawl in.

Despite his best efforts to escape, Ranma’s body refused to even blink. He could only watch as his reflection came closer and closer in the glass, until he stepped out of the mirror, glided down the midnight trail cast by his shadow, and came to a stop in front of Ranma. Leaning forward until they were separated by a bare fingers width, he tilted his head inquisitively, and looked enigmatically into Ranma’s eyes.

A heartbeat passed, two, and then the reflection sighed, puffing warm air across Ranma’s face. Ranma waited for him to move back, but he didn’t. Instead, the doppelganger dropped his chin and leaned sideways to strop it across Ranma’s shoulder and up his neck.

_Is this some kind of weird kitty scent marking or something?_ Ranma speculated wildly. _If only I could move, I’d punch you so hard even your ancestors would feel it._ No matter how hard he strained though, nothing so much as twitched.

_Get offa me, you creep!_ He thought that as loud as he could.

Nothing happened.

_I want to wake up now!_

Still nothing.

Hovering by Ranma’s ear, his doppelganger whispered, “Whatever it takes to save Akane, ne.” Wary, Ranma tried to catch his expression out of the corner of his eye. Moving to Ranma’s other side, the reflection repeated the strange rubbing, once again pausing by his ear.

Moist breath funneled down Ranma’s neck, causing his skin to crawl. “Or,” the reflection hissed, “is it, whatever it takes to save Ranma?” Leaning back, the doppelganger raised an eyebrow and asked, “Is there even a difference?”

Draping his hands around Ranma’s neck, he gave an enigmatic smile and said, “You think you know, but you don’t act like you know.” Sharp claws kneaded the back of Ranma’s neck as he purred, “I know.”

Then Ranma’s reflection pressed flush against him. Ranma felt claustrophobic. Then it got worse. Wrapping his arms around Ranma, the doppelganger dropped his head to Ranma’s neck and clutched tighter and tighter, and then tighter still, until somehow he forced himself through Ranma’s open wounds and vanished inside his body.

Paralysis disappeared abruptly, which Ranma discovered when he fell to the floor writhing and convulsing in pain. Silently screaming, he rolled to the side and vomited bile onto the floor. Panting, he rode waves of pain until he calmed down enough for him to crawl away from his mess.

After several minutes, he felt slightly less like dying. Slowly looking around as he tested his control of his body by tensing muscle groups one by one, Ranma began to notice things. Staring at the empty mirror, he finally figured out why that circle of light seemed familiar. This place was like the pit his father had thrown him into to learn the Cat Fist when he was a child.

Ranma remembered being trapped in that dark pit, surrounded and attacked by feral cats, staring up at that circle of light beseechingly for the faintest hint that his father was coming back to rescue him from feline hell. Even hours after they’d stopped, he’d still been able to see the glowing outline of that circle on the back of his eyelids every time he closed his eyes.

This mental space had always felt too dangerous, dark and primitive. It was damaged. He was damaged.  But it was still his space, in his memory and in his spirit.

It was his.

Strangely, as he looked around himself, he felt a faint feeling of satisfaction. Ranma didn’t understand it. He was too exhausted to figure it out.

For the moment, he was _done_.

Flopping down onto the floor, he flung out his hands in a stretch. His left hand bumped into something. Curious, he leaned over to see what he’d touched. The room had been empty when he’d examined it before.

Ranma found a messy knot the size of a softball attached to a braided cord rising out of the floor. The knot had broken filaments sprouting up all over it like weeds, some clean cut and others jagged. A colorful kaleidoscope of rope, fabric strips, yarn, and even plastic zip ties were tangled throughout to knot. From the top stretched a single cord, thin as spider’s silk and red as blood, which continued up into the darkness until it disappeared above his head.

Pain forgotten, Ranma cautiously brushed it with the barest tip of his finger. The thread vibrated as if plucked and gave off a light sweet tone. He’d found Akane.  She was still alive.

Euphoria swept away his pain. Closing his eyes in relief, Ranma felt his body and thoughts become as light and insubstantial as mist. Time stretched like taffy.

Then everything snapped back into place.

Opening his eyes, Ranma felt whole. The shoji walls glowed in the sunlight and the shadows had only moved slightly since he’d first entered this room. Surprised, he realized that his mental journey couldn’t have taken as long as it seemed.

Feeling unsettled, he whispered the words on the scroll he’d read earlier out loud, “ura niwa ura ga aru.” The reverse side also has a reverse side. Good advice, but he felt that it was pretty obvious that there was more to this situation than he understood. However, he’d have to leave figuring out what had just changed for another time.

Right now, his priority was Akane. As soon as he thought of her, he felt the fragile spiritual cord still linking them together.  It would lead him to her. Sighing in relief, Ranma slipped out of the room and jogged off to find his fiancée. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In the next chapter, Ranma and Akane will finally have a conversation together where there are no bystanders to interrupt or interject. It has been many long chapters since this last occurred. Potentially, there will also be bad touching, of a sort. You’ll have to wait and see what that means.
> 
> I’m curious, what is your favorite scene in this fic so far? I’ve been thinking about some of my favorite images (which may or may not be fav scenes) and how I hope someone will make me some fanart. What would you like to see someone draw? Scenes that I think would make amazing pictures:
> 
> Akane eating the peach in the marketplace, while Ranma and the shopkeeper stared at her and drooled/blushed,
> 
> Akane fighting off the rapists and evil pearls with an unconscious Ranko in the background
> 
> Akane floating down the river with Ranko on her back, while cats pace her on the shore
> 
> Facing off against the iriomote cats in the cave, any part of that, like when Akane throws fruit or stands in front of Ranma or cat fist Ranma sits on her to check if she is possessed
> 
> Cat Fist Ranma licking the side of Akane’s face
> 
> Akane getting patched up by Mariko while cat fist Ranma sat on her feet
> 
> Ranma practicing Martial Arts Geometry, with some cool angles and circles and equations squiggled on the picture like those sport commercials
> 
> Ranma facing off against his mirror cat fist self in this chapter
> 
> I’m sure there must be more. Let me know if you have any ideas, preferences, or better yet, if you have any pictures to show the rest of us!


	18. Ranma knits a lace collar

The disruptive sound of slamming cupboards and clattering pottery drew Mariko away from her work and down the hall. At the closed door of the kitchen she heard someone behind her say “Hey,” and turned her head to see Aoi striding towards her.

“Who’s making that racket?” Aoi asked.

“No idea,” Mariko replied. “Let’s see.”

Opening the door revealed a woman crouched on her hands and knees on the kitchen floor, her head disappearing into the bottom of the cupboard with bowls, pots, and pans scattered across the floor beside her. Cursing echoed out as more kitchenware clattered. Seconds later, a bleached blond head popped out, festooned with dust bunnies and slightly tangled hair.

“Sachi,” Aoi scolded, “what are you doing in here making such a mess?”

“Ack!” yelped Sachi, falling backwards onto her bottom is surprise. “When did you come in?”

Mariko shook her head and, chucking, helped Sachi to her feet. “Just now, but if you’re looking for that rotgut you like to drink, Aoi hid it somewhere else after your last bender.”

Aoi shrugged her shoulders unrepentantly at Sachi’s glare. “Alcohol won’t solve your problems. I’ve told you before, you need to stop relying on it so much. Besides, you always disrupt lessons when you’re drunk, and then you mope about feeling embarrassed and guilty for days afterwards. Plus, you gave me permission last month to hide it after you had that accidental threesome.”

At Sachi’s look of forced confusion and mumbled disclaimer, Aoi narrowed her eyes and continued. “You remember that, right Mariko? She stumbled off with a boy twenty years younger AND a geezer twenty years older than her at the same time, and then had to do the walk of shame back up the mountain. She needed a series of antibiotic shots for all the bite marks, and decided to traumatize the nurse by describing how the geezer couldn’t get it up and the boy went off before he even got her clothes off. That poor girl now turns beet red and runs in the opposite direction every time she sees Sachi coming.”

Mariko’s lips twitched and she coughed into her hand. “Oh yes, that. And then there was the time before that when-,” she began before Sachi interrupted.

“All right already, we get the point! No alcohol for Sachi today.” She pouted with a shifty look to her eyes. “Can I go now?” she asked as she tossed her blond hair over one shoulder.

Shaking her head slowly, Mariko bluntly said, “No. Let’s just avoid the part where you search the rest of the compound for something irresponsible to do, and go straight to the part where you tell us what’s bothering you.”

“Maybe I don’t want to tell you,” Sachi sniffed.

Rolling her eyes, Mariko grabbed Sachi’s arm and towed her out of the kitchen and into her office, ignoring her resistance and the mess they’d left behind. “Now don’t be like that, you know we worry about you and just want to help,” Mariko said as she shoved Sachi down by the low table. Aoi followed, closed the door, and then sprawled down onto a pillow next to Sachi. “So what happened to set you off?”

When Mariko dropped down across from them, Sachi groaned and buried her face in her hands. “How is this my life?” she moaned. “Fine. You know that I never wanted to be the responsible one that people look up to, right?”

Patting her back consolingly, Aoi soothed, “Calm down, no one really looks up to you. In fact, we use you as an example of what not to do when we teach the newbies.”

Smacking Aoi in the arm, and ignoring her “ouch,” Sachi looked up at Mariko beseechingly. “You sure I couldn’t have just a little drink? To calm my nerves? Or that bottle of itching powder you confiscated to put in Aoi’s bed?”

“No,” Mariko replied. “Talk.”

Sighing, Sachi tucked her hair behind her ears and began to explain. “It’s Akane. That girl is so young, yet she’s seen more battles and supernatural things than 90% of this monastery put together. Her strength of will is astonishing. The marks on her soul are so complex I can barely untangle what they mean. I haven’t been this out of my depth in years. Plus, the few things I can see are…” she paused and looked into space for a minute.

“Are what?” Aoi asked softly.

Sachi blinked and focused back on her friends, “They’re terrible. I’ve never seen anything like that before. The pattern of her ki reads like she’s seconds from death… but at the same time not dying, she’s possessed by demons… but not demonic. There are traces of animalistic influences, but she’s fully human. I don’t understand it. When I was examining her ki, something jumped out and _bit_ me. It felt like a small-scale ki attack and stung like a mother. However it wasn’t her ki, it came from somewhere else. That should be impossible.” Shaking her head she finished, “There’s so much magic and competing outside forces tunneling though that girl that I don’t know how she seems so normal.”

The other women blanched in shock at her words. “Is there anything you can do to fix her?” asked Mariko.

“I did my best to minimize those outside bonds,” Sachi explained with a flail of her hands, “but I wasn’t able to sever them completely. The scaffolding supporting her soul is so fragile, I’m afraid that if I try to do more, it might collapse completely like a house of cards,” she pulled on her blond strands in frustration, “destroying her spirit and causing death or, even worse, turning her into some sort of zombie or golem. I did my best, but I just don’t know enough! I’m not even sure that I _can_ fix her completely.”

Rubbing her aching head, Sachi continued, “I downplayed my worries because the girl herself was freaking out, and I think I convinced Akane that everything will be fine as long as she leaves it alone, but that’s only a theory on my part. I need to go and do some research before I do anything more.”

Pausing, she sighed. “I hate homework.” Looking earnest, she continued. “I mean really hate it. But she deserves better than this. Akane’s heart is still so pure and strong, despite the many challenges she’s faced in her young life. Seeing that purity shining through her soul is beautiful. I’d hate to damage or destroy that.”

Sachi took a deep breath, and then added in a rush, “I also don’t trust that Ranma of hers. There’s something hinky about him and their relationship, beyond the obvious, but Akane is too wrapped up in him to listen to any warnings from a stranger, so I didn’t bother wasting my breath. I still insist that you should have let me examine him before sending him down the mountain, though.” She shrugged and sat back.

After a beat of silence, Mariko quirked a smile and commented, “Hinky? Only six year-old boys and grannies use that word.”

“Oh shut up," rejoined Sachi weakly. “That’s what you remark on? Out of all of that?”

Leaning over, Aoi hugged her around the shoulders. “No one knows everything,” she consoled, “and I haven’t seen you being this responsible in ages. You didn’t cause those problems, you just discovered them. We’re proud of you already for trying to help her out, and …” she winked, “for not blaming her for clocking you in the face. That shows a surprising amount of maturity considering your usual behavior.”

“Meh,” Sachi shrugged, but looked somewhat consoled.

“Teasing aside,” added Mariko, “we’re always here for you, as your friends and comrades. If there’s anything we can do to help you or Akane, just let us know. We’ll be there.”

Allowing maturity to shine through, Sachi met her friends’ eyes and gifted them with a nod and smile. That done, she decided to revert to type, “So if alcohol and pranks are off the table, I insist on having cookies. Chocolate ones. And you lot are going to help me steal some… or else!”

 

* * *

 

 

Ranma jogged through the gardens without any attempt at stealth, avoiding the monks now by blind luck. Focused solely on the thread of feeling vibrating down the cord connecting him to Akane, his eyes raked over the ornamental plants and carved statues blindly. 

_Where was she?_

Passing a tree, he did an abrupt turn when he caught sight of a limp hand on the ground next to a golden peach out of the corner of his eye. Ranma ran around the tree and skidded to his knees next to Akane. She rested unmoving upon the ground as if merely napping in the sunshine. Her face looked peaceful.

But a sleeping Akane would never really lie so still. Normally she tossed and turned violently. Her chest didn’t even seem to be moving with breath. And freshly fallen snow possessed more color than the flesh of her face. Only the faint blue tracery of veins on her eyelids and the palest blush of pink on her lips kept her from looking like a monochromatic woodblock print of a fairytale princess. That or a Juliet.

Ranma swallowed painfully and reached out. To distract himself from panic at her still form, he let his thoughts follow that tangent to dwell on something he usually avoided: the moment during their school production of Romeo and Juliet when Akane tricked him by putting tape on his mouth before she had to kiss him. Despite the tape over his lips, he’d still felt the moist puff of her breath on his cheeks and the tickle of her hair on his forehead. It had been intimate, even with the tape, and he’d had many dreams in the years since of what might have happened if there’d never been any tape, or if he’d ripped it off his mouth and then pulled her back to his lips the way he’d wanted to. A kiss between them hadn’t happened yet, but he’d always assumed it would someday when he finally worked up the nerve.

But what if it was too late? Again?

Brutally suppressing any memories of the last time he’d been (almost) too late for Akane, Ranma touched trembling fingers to her neck. He held his breath as he smoothed the pads of his fingers up the column of her pale throat to feel for a pulse, desperate to validate that the spiritual cord’s pulsing of life wasn’t a lie. One moment passed, then two, before he finally felt a flutter against his fingertips. Expelling his breath in relief, he nevertheless kept his fingers pressed to her throat until he’d counted ten precious heartbeats.  

“Wake up, Akane,” he said. She didn’t move. Shaking her shoulders and tapping her face produced no results either. Her head lolled to the side. “Come on, sleepyhead. Wake up,” he ordered firmly. She remained limp.

Staring at her face for any signs of stirring, Ranma found his gaze drawn to her Cupid’s bow mouth. Were her lips darker, more flushed with color since he first arrived? ‘ _That had to be a good sign, right?’_

Cradling her head in his hands, Ranma found his thumb sliding up to slowly caress the slightly chapped skin of her bottom lip. “Akane,” he swallowed, then coaxed softly, “wake up… it’s Ranma.”

Despite how long they’d known each other, Ranma had never touched Akane like this before, never known the texture of her lips. He’d wondered about it, what red-blooded male wouldn’t, but fear had kept him from assuaging his curiosity or even thinking about it too hard when around her. That fear now seemed muted, as if a distant memory that no longer proved relevant. Just touching her made him feel better and started to dispel the panic of the last hour. If he could, he’d be purring.

Nevertheless, he couldn’t truly relax until she woke up. Cocking his head to the side, Ranma sat back and evaluated what else he could do. He let his fingers trace up and down her forearm as he thought. A nervous little voice in his mind kept listing all the reasons why he should stop touching her this way, should keep his distance. But he didn’t have any good ideas for waking her up… except one.

It was a terrible idea. However, it was the only idea he had left. Shaking her and shouting didn’t seem to be doing any good. Besides, this was something that he really, really wanted to do anyways. So he threw all of those reasons to stop touching her away, and gave himself up to emotion and instinct.

First, he had to somehow repair the bond between their spirits.

Following some inner prompting, he leaned over Akane and let his hands hover over her body for a second before decisively encircling her neck with his hands. She was so small. His fingers easily enclosed her neck. He forgot how tiny she was sometimes. Akane’s personality was so strong when she was awake.

Letting the thump of her heartbeat against his palms soothe him, Ranma let his eyes drift shut and concentrated. He tried to will his energy through his hands and underneath her skin. Going purely by instinct at this point, he slid his hands down her neck until his palms rested over her heart. Distantly he noticed the soft swell of her bosom, but his attention was consumed more with the rapid drain of his ki as the skin under his hands grew warm and soaked in his energy. He didn’t know how he was doing this, and right now he didn’t care. All that mattered was that it was working. Somehow he knew she needed it, needed him right now.

Pulling his hands back, Ranma let himself catch his breath for a minute. Then he used every spiritual technique, trick, and cheat he’d ever learned, along with blind intuition and dogged determination, to try and reinforce the fragile filament connecting him to Akane. He pulled bits of his ki out from every nook and cranny of his being, knitting them together until his fingers shook with fatigue and hundreds of threads of pure energy dangled from his hands like a shawl of the finest gold lace.

Panting and sweating with the effort, Ranma’s vision started to tunnel. Acid seared his stomach. Shaking off his exhaustion, Ranma set his jaw and forced his body to obey. He would not drop his work now, not when he was so close. Actions guided almost purely by instinct now, he carefully looped his golden shawl under Akane’s head and around her neck. Taking each end, he twisted them into two thin cords. His fingers felt seared, and began to go numb in spots, but Ranma again ignored it. Using the barest pressure possible, he nudged the bond tying him and Akane up from her body. Then he gently incorporated it into a braid using the two cords of his ki.

As soon as he finished, he took a shaky breath. _Now comes the test._ Bracing himself, he gave the spiritual braid now connecting them a hard yank. There was a flash of light and Akane jerked, arching her back before flopping back onto the ground. The new cord held.

Ranma let go of the cord. The hundreds of small threads making up the shawl frayed off from the end of the braid and remained connected to his hands. Blinking his dry eyes rapidly, Ranma let himself finally relax his iron control. His ability to sense the cord and individual threads weakened once he stopped concentrating, but they were still there. If needed, he could find and reinforce their bond again.

Rubbing his face, he turned to see how Akane was reacting to his actions. Her chest now rose and fell strongly with her breathing. She even began to produce a slight snore. He smiled at the cute sound and took pride in the color returning to her cheeks.

It had worked. Well, mostly worked. She still hadn’t woken up yet.

However, their connection was back. It felt stronger than ever. Strangely, it also felt somehow different from before. He’d figure it out later.

Sighing, Ranma let his hands curve back up to cradle Akane’s face. Smoothing his thumb up along the seam of her mouth, he watched as his calluses caught slightly on her lips, exposing the barest hint of white teeth. He could feel the moist puff of her breath tickling his fingers as the color slowly deepened even more on her lips.

However, despite the renewed cord and his bold actions, her eyelashes still didn’t even flutter.  Shaking his head, Ranma told himself to stop fondling her lips and to figure out how to wake Akane up.

“C’mon, you’re acting like some sorta helpless Disney Princess, waiting to be saved by some lame old prince,” he prodded, knowing she’d hate the implication that she couldn’t save herself. “Wake up or I’ll have ta’ do something drastic. Considering what I’ve already done today, that’s sayin’ something.” At her lack of response, Ranma looked around quickly to make sure they were still alone. It was habit. Plus, he really didn’t want to be kicked out by monks before he saw Akane wake up.

Then he turned back and muttered, “Hell, maybe I want ta do somethin’ drastic. What’s one more thing today?” Placing one hand on the ground next to her head, he slowly leaned forward and whispered in her ear, “Last chance to wake up and stop me, ‘kane.”

For a second he just breathed, inhaling the scent of her hair. Then he leaned back to look into her face. “Maybe you are a princess, Akane… my Princess, though I’m no Prince,” he whispered with a self-deprecating laugh. “I guess I’ll have to do, though. No other guy is allowed to touch you, even if they could break your curse and wake ya’ up.” He grimaced for a second, “Well, maybe I’d let them kiss you if it’d wake you up quicker, but then I’d have to kill them or ship them off to Antarctica or somethin’.”

He felt a little punch drunk and a lot reckless, revealing his heart this way. Perhaps he was acting out of character, saying out loud things he’d only contemplated in secret in shadowed places. But he couldn’t seem to stop himself. He didn’t want to.

“You’re mine,” his declared starkly, a bass growl underlining his words. Then a smirk softened the intensity of his expression, “even if you’d try to kick my head in if you heard me saying that.”

Staring intently at Akane’s face, he lowered his head until he was hovering above her mouth. “I’ll wake you up, Princess Akane,” he teased softly. Then he became serious. His mouth opened and closed several times, as if to say something more, but nothing came out. Finally, he swallowed audibly.

“I can’t say the most important part out loud just yet, Akane. Besides, maybe you should be awake for that part?” He cleared his throat awkwardly. “But, well, you know what a kiss at a time like this is called anyways, right?”

Then Ranma leaned forward and pressed his lips gently to Akane’s. Tingling warmth surged across his heart and fizzed in his belly. It was the sweetest kiss he’d ever given. In fact, it was the only kiss he’d ever willingly given.

As Ranma’s eyes drifted shut, he silently beseeched Akane to wake up, to move those lush lips against his so that it became a kiss shared instead of one stolen.  He’d had too many kisses stolen without his consent over the years. Maybe this was wrong, but he couldn’t go another moment with the regret of never kissing Akane hanging over his head.

At least he’d remember this one. Their actual first kiss was when he’d been in the cat fist. It was something stolen from them both. He couldn’t remember it no matter how hard he tried, and she didn’t seem to want to remember it.

Pained by the thought, Ranma realized that this wasn’t working. No matter how sweet her lips felt, or the lingering taste of peach enticing his tongue, he wanted Akane awake and kissing him back. But she still wasn’t moving.

Although his lips still wanted to cling, Ranma pulled away. _Now what?_ Ranma asked himself as he sat back on his heels and forced himself to ignore the moist sheen now gracing Akane’s lips. One (long and lingering) kiss hadn’t woken her up. He’d been foolish to think it would. He stomped down on the thought that maybe a second, or third, kiss was really needed to confirm that. After all, hadn’t he said it already? He was no prince. He should have known better, he though in self-disgust. The only royal titles he might aspire to were king of fighters or king of tricksters.

A breeze ruffled his clothing and caused leaves to swirl down from the surrounding trees in helices of topaz and gold. Brushing unruly hair out of Akane’s eyes tenderly, Ranma thought at first he’d imagined the faint furrow of her brow. Then Akane’s nose twitched.

“Akane?” he called hopefully, pulling his fingers away from her face and closing his hand carefully, dropping it to his side. Her eyelashes trembled for a moment, almost but not quite opening. Her head moved to the side as she wiggled and stretched. Then her eyes blinked opened. She squinted around herself for a moment before focusing on Ranma.

“Ranma?” she said in confusion. “What are you doing here? Is it time to go already?” She yawned and sat up gingerly.

Ranma felt something that might have been an echo of a twinge in his side. Either he’d imagined it, or she was sore from sleeping on the ground, he decided. The input from the bond was too confusing to interpret properly.

“I was just taking a nap,” she explained, blushing an enchanting pink when she saw how closely he was sitting.

Forcing himself to recline back onto his hands so she’d relax, Ranma responded. “Nah, I just came up to see how you were doing.” Although Akane looked a million times better than she had when Ranma had found her, there was still a paleness to her features and bruising beneath her eyes that shouldn’t be there.  “You’re still recovering from your cold, right? We can go whenever ya feel up to it, don’t worry.”

“No, I’m fi-,” Akane began before interrupting herself with a wide yawn. “I’m just a little tired still from being _sick_ , but I am feeling better,” she said with a strange emphasis in her voice. “And then there was the…,” she trailed off into uncomfortable silence, and then continued with a false brightness, “We can leave tomorrow after a good night’s sleep. Sorry for slowing us down.”

Narrowing his eyes, Ranma tilted his head to the side and examined her features closely. “Is that really all? You don’t just look sick. You look stressed out and upset. I’ve seen you look pretty ugly, but right now, you could almost give Gosunkugi a run for his money on the sunken eyed, despairing look.”

“Hey! You are such a jerk!” Akane yelped and glared.

 Ranma’s lips twitched in a smirk, but he kept talking. “So don’t lie to me. What’s going on?”

“Nothing!” she deflected. But she also rolled her shoulders guiltily and wouldn’t meet his eyes. Normally she was a much better liar than this.

“Akane,” Ranma said, soft and serious, waiting until she raised her eyes to his face. “Tell me. Please.”

Sagging, Akane began twisting her fingers into the edge of her shirt. Ranma listened intently as she haltingly began to explain that a monk named Sachi had read her spirit and discovered potential demon possessions, plural. However, he couldn’t completely control the twitch when she revealed the woman’s unsuccessful attempts to remove the foreign influence she’d found.

‘ _That bitch_ ,’ Ranma thought with a cold viciousness usually foreign to his nature, ‘ _how dare she try to cut me out of Akane?_ ’ Because that had to be what the female monk had sensed in Akane: the bond tying her to Ranma. He had no idea why Akane had let the woman read her spirit so deeply in the first place, but now it was up to him to calm her fears.

“Did she say anything else, or how it could have happened?” he asked, barely keeping his cool.

After a slight pause, Akane answered. “No, she just said I had marks of possession, and that talking about it too much or messing with it could be dangerous.”

Something seemed to be missing from her explanation, but Ranma’s mind was spinning too much to bother with it. He had other things to worry about. Akane didn’t seem to know that the foreign influence belonged to Ranma just yet. _Good_. He didn’t want her trying to mess with the bond anymore than she already had. The braided bond between them obviously helped Akane, she looked tons better ever since he’d repaired it. So she should leave it alone.

“What a load of crock, Akane,” Ranma began scathingly. “The only good piece of advice seems to be the one to forget about it and leave it alone. I’m sure this broad is good at reading the ki of a normal person or a peaceful monk, but I doubt she comes across many people who get into as much trouble as we do. I mean, just think about it.”

He saw Akane staring at him inquisitively, so he smirked at her and continued. “Those traces she sensed are probably left over from all of the craziness in our lives the last few years. To name just one of a zillion examples,” he pointed a finger at her, “what about the haunted onsen and that doll that swapped bodies with you over a year ago? Don’t you think that probably left a mark of possession, even though you’ve never had any other problems with it? Maybe she’s sensing that.”

Ranma deliberately avoided mentioning her drowning at Jusenkyo, and the pool that now bore her form. It didn’t matter that it might be a better example for his argument. Both of them avoided mentioning that trip, especially after the last failed wedding. Just the thought of it made him experience a horrid combination of anxiety, terror, and rage. Ranma tried to ruthlessly suppress those feelings and think up more prevarications.

Perhaps it was this state of distraction that caused him to not immediately notice anything odd about his hands reaching out naturally, as if he’d done it a hundred times before, to cup Akane’s shoulders and squeeze lightly. “You shouldn’t worry about it, Akane.” Then he smoothed his hands up until they cradled the base of her neck, using his thumbs to tilt up her chin until she met his eyes. His fingertips caressed the tender skin and soft hairs at her nape. He’d always wanted to touch her like this when she got scared, but he never had. ‘ _How foolish of me_ ,’ he thought vaguely, before he became distracted by the sight before him.

Twin circles of red burned on Akane’s cheeks as she bit her lower lip nervously, that lip that he’d been kissing just a few minutes ago. ‘ _Could she still taste me there,’_ he wondered, ‘ _and would she recognize it as me if she did?_ ’ His fingers spanned her slender neck like a collar, rough hands slightly darker than the shade of her smooth skin. All together it made a very pretty picture.

Ranma continued, “Considering that we haven’t ever noticed any problems, I think you should take what she said with a grain of salt and relax. You know you’re tough. I’m sure your spirit is the same.” She hadn’t hit him yet, even though he was still touching her face. Ranma wanted to see if she’d let him kiss her.

That thought made Ranma finally register the voice in the back of his head that had been stuttering for some time now that he was acting _completely_ out of character. What was wrong with him?

‘ _Nothing’s wrong, you’re just finally right_ ,’ a different voice whispered in his mind.

‘ _Maybe… or maybe not._ ’ He regretfully needed some distance from Akane to figure himself out, to figure out what had made him act so weird/honest/amorous/unlike himself.

Especially before he did something that made Akane run away from him in horror. He couldn’t risk losing Akane. He needed her.

Ranma let his hands slip off her shoulders and stepped back. He noticed that Akane had relaxed her tight grip on the edge of her shirt. She even graced him with a smile and admitted that he was probably right about the state of her spirit. A small part of him was pleased to note that her blush hadn’t disappeared.

“You should go back inside to rest some more,” Ranma said, taking another step back from Akane, despite his body clamoring for him to move forward and sweep her up into his arms. Maybe tomorrow, he told himself wistfully.

“I’m told you I’m fine,” she insisted, rolling her eyes. “But… you could come back with me for dinner,” Akane offered shyly.

A pleased smile crossed his lips, “Nah, I need to sneak out before I get beaten to a pulp by the ladies around here. Just take care of yourself and I’ll see you when you’re feeling better.”

Waving goodbye with a forced casualness, Ranma trotted off into the forest to circle around the compound before heading back down the mountain. He didn’t allow himself to glance back at Akane as he left. However, he did increase his attention on their soul bond, letting the feel of her soothe the beast inside wanting to race back to her side immediately.

Sure, Ranma had totally and completely lied to Akane, but he felt no shame about it. He acknowledged that at some point his spirit must have invaded and somehow possessed hers. It might not have been on purpose at first, but he didn’t regret it now. It might be against the “natural order” of things according to those stupid lady monks, but he didn’t really give a flying fig for their opinions. No one could make him leave Akane. No one could make him willingly give up this connection. And what Akane didn’t know, wouldn’t worry her. After all, she’d been fine in Nerima with this connection between them for months now.

Yes, Ranma decided, she didn’t need to know. Now he just had to decide if he wanted to embrace the new him, or go back to the old, and if this change in the way he was thinking was dangerous. He needed to seriously consider this.

However… the new him got to touch Akane _without_ getting clobbered. She might have even let him kiss her, and might have kissed him back. With perks like that, maybe it was better not to question this new him too much.

Well, at least he had until tomorrow to decide.

TO BE CONTINUED…

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AN: What do you think? Please let me know!
> 
> I’ve been struggling with RL for quite a while, hence the sporadic update schedule. Having a baby a year and a half ago really changed my life and priorities, and I’ve been struggling to have any motivation for my Ph.D. work. I might have to finish with a Master’s degree after 7 years. I tell myself that at least I got an ‘M r s’ and an ‘M o m’ while I’ve been here, but I still feel like a bit of a failure for not managing to find enough oomph to get that Ph.D.
> 
> Of course, instead of confronting that work, I skipped off to write this chapter instead to garner some positive feedback. Your reviews really do make me happy and inspire me to keep going on the writing. Have you ever started out a chapter with an outline, and then had your muse refuse to follow it? What is really driving me crazy lately are that the characters, especially Ranma, keep veering off of my outline and doing things I didn’t intend for them to do or say or think. So then I have to figure out how to fit that into my plans. Args. For example, Ranma wasn’t supposed to kiss Akane for 2 more chapters! But he insisted! And got all touchy with her before he was supposed to.  But unconscious Akane liked it and wouldn’t let me delete it and start over to get things back on track, so here we are. Maybe she was dancing with Jareth in a masquerade until Ranma woke her up (the peach, get it?). I’ll figure it out somehow. Hopefully they aren’t too out of character or unbelievable considering their current ages and the plot.
> 
> Thanks again for reading!


	19. Akane eats, dreams, and leaves

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for all of the good advice and encouragement about RL. Also, for those of you disturbed by Ranma’s actions lately, keep in mind that the POVs in this fic are always biased towards the narrator’s current knowledge, opinions, and prejudices. Also, this fic is about character growth, which means people doing stupid, selfish, immature, irrational, or sketchy things that they don’t personally think are wrong. Then down the road there are severe consequences to those actions, forcing them to change and grow.

As Akane strolled back towards the monastery, she felt both flustered and giddy. Heat radiated from her cheeks. For a second there, she could have sworn that Ranma was going to kiss her! Her pulse was still racing. She felt like pinching herself just to make sure she wasn’t dreaming. After sweetly calming her anxieties about being possessed, Ranma had cradled her jaw in his hands so gently. Then his fingers had softly caressed her neck. Ranma had actually complimented her… without an accompanying insult! Akane felt like floating.

Nothing could bring her down!

Until a guilty thought punctured her ballooning optimism and pointed out how Akane had totally and completely lied to Ranma. He’d asked if she knew anything about how she might have become possessed. She’d told him no.

But Akane didn’t want to talk about waking up in that room and the things that had happened there. She hadn’t even told the female monks everything. It made Akane sick just thinking about it and the nightmares it had caused. Even trying to imagine describing it all to Ranma made her break out in a cold sweat.

Besides which, Sachi had cautioned her not to talk or think about demons or that evil necklace, or risk of harming her damaged spirit. Akane had already taken a risk just by talking to Ranma as much as she had.  Better to stop now before something bad actually happened to her.

Akane was going to try and take Sachi’s advice to not worry and just live her life. She felt fine, especially after her nap. In fact, she felt stronger than ever.

Tomorrow she would be healthy enough to leave the monastery and fly out of Okinawa. Sachi had said that distance helped with these things. There was probably nothing Ranma could do anyways but worry until Sachi went and did her research. What Ranma didn’t know, wouldn’t worry him.

Besides which, it was Akane’s soul - not Ranma’s. She had the right to keep this to herself if she wanted to. If she was wrong, it wouldn’t end up hurting anyone but herself.

A rather pensive Akane stepped inside the monastery and made her way towards the eating hall. Just like before, she found Sachi, Mariko, and Aoi sitting around laughing. Sachi had a dark smudge of something on her chin that looked like melted chocolate.

“Akane!” called out Mariko with a wave. “Come and sit with us and have a cookie.”

“Hey,” grumbled Sachi, “don’t go giving away all my loot now.” She wiped a pile of crumbs off the top of a stack of books by her elbow. From what Akane could see of the titles, they seemed to be about reading chakras, manipulating spiritual energy, and possession by demons and other kami.

_Just some light reading for my little problem,_ Akane thought to herself with a sigh.

Mariko rolled her eyes at Sachi’s whine and passed Akane a chocolate chip cookie from the ceramic bowl in the center of the table. Akane started to plop down onto the bench next to Mariko, but a sharp pain from her side quickly halted her spontaneous movement. Inhaling sharply, she lowered herself much more cautiously to the bench.

Aoi nodded in greeting and asked, “How are you feeling?”

“Much better after my nap outside in the sunshine,” Akane answered. “For a while I had this awful, piercing headache and felt really weak and ill, but sleeping helped a lot. That and seeing Ra-,” Akane cut herself off and cleared her throat, not wanting to get Ranma into trouble for sneaking in, “seeing the rain clouds move away,” she finished instead. Smiling in a way she hoped didn’t look guilty, Akane took a bite of her cookie.

Cocking her head to the side, Sachi asked, “Did this awful headache start before or after our meeting?”

“After,” Akane answered. “But I really do feel tons better now.”

“Hmm,” mused Sachi, “I wonder if your spirit had become so used to relying on the other entities that when I pinched the connection closed, it went into withdrawal like someone missing a dose of drugs. Or your energy could have started to collapse like a cracked wall deprived of scaffolding.” She looked up and met Akane’s eyes guiltily. “I’m sorry. I didn’t even think of that being a possibility” she apologized.

Akane smiled back and didn’t notice the anxious twisting of her hands crushing her cookie. “That’s okay,” she said softly. “I feel fine.”

Sachi continued, “Of course, considering the amount of entwinement, I’m surprised that you can even walk right now. You sure you aren’t still feeling weak or lightheaded?”

Akane just shook her head, having no explanation for her surge of energy.

“Well,” Mariko said, “we’re just glad you are feeling better. Sachi plans on leaving tonight to go and see a few people about your problem. She’ll come and visit you in Nerima after she finds you a few more answers.”

Expressing her thanks, Akane looked down in surprise at her pulverized cooking and blushed at the mess. As she cleaned up her pile of cookie crumbs, she added, “I need to leave tomorrow myself to make the flight back to Tokyo.”

“Are you sure that’s wise?” interjected Aoi. “You just barely woke up from your fever, after all.”

“I’m feeling better now,” Akane dismissed. “I’ll be fine.” Thanking them again for their help with a small bow, she turned and returned to her assigned room.

* * *

 

Early the next morning, Akane waited anxiously for Mariko to examine the stitches crisscrossing the knife wound in her side. Akane had packed the night before. As soon as Mariko gave her the all clear, she planned to hike down the mountain to the men’s temple where Ranma was staying. Akane still felt bruised and had a lingering weakness from her fever. But she was tough. She’d be fine.

Mariko cleaned off the pus still leaking from the wound with a soft cloth and then leaned over to sniff for infection at Akane’s side. Grimacing, Akane nevertheless forced herself to hold still throughout the cleaning and final application of a pale cream. “I think the worse of the infection is finally gone,” Mariko explained. “Here’s some more salve for you to keep applying for the next few weeks until it stops leaking. The stitches should dissolve on their own, but if it gives you any trouble, get your doctor to look at it.”

Sitting back, Mariko gave Akane a serious look. “Are you sure you have to leave now? I really think a few more days rest would be best. I’m afraid you’ll open this up again and get another infection if you don’t take it easy.”

Akane appreciated Mariko’s concern, but she refused to sit around any longer. To be honest, she missed her family and friends and wanted to burn the bed she’d been stuck in during her illness. She was sick of being sick. Plus, she school was starting up again soon.

Another consideration urging her to leave was Ranma. Akane missed him. For almost two years now, she’d seen him almost every day. She liked seeing him every day. He was often the first and last face she saw each morning and night, a bookend stabilizing her life. Not having him here threw her off. Plus he’d been acting unlike himself the last time she’d seen him. She hoped he was okay.

After hugging Mariko goodbye, Akane set off down the mountain to collect Ranma.  Rays of the newly risen sun illuminated the path connecting the two monasteries. As Akane walked, she reflected on the strange dream she’d had the night before.

In Akane’s dream, it felt like she was seeing out of Ranma’s eyes while in the grip of the cat fist. She’d been crouching up in a tree wearing Ranma’s black pants and tank top, sporting Ranma’s masculine chest, and staring down at a dream Akane as she practiced a mish-mash of styles in the dojo from martial arts gymnastics to martial arts shadow puppetry. Then her dream self had jumped down from the tree and padded over to Akane, where she felt herself start to purr and rub up against her legs, disrupting her practice. In her dream, she could see a black braid hanging over her own masculine shoulder. Dream Akane reached down and flicked it out of her face, patting cat Ranma on the back before tugging her towards the pond and splashing her with cold water.

That’s when Akane had woken up. Since she’d lived through Ranma turning into a cat and watching her practice from a tree just a couple of weeks ago, Akane didn’t think too much of reliving it from his point of view. She’d looked pretty cool in her dream too, she told herself with a sleepy smile. Ranma was still skeptical about the martial arts shadow puppetry Akane had learned the month before, but there were a few moves in it that held potential for distracting or even blinding an opponent. Akane just had to figure out how to integrate them without a fixed light source like a flashlight. Then he’d get a surprise.

Turning over gingerly to baby her wounded side, she’d easily fallen back to sleep. Another dream had quickly sucked her under. The memory of it had dissipated almost completely upon waking, however. Akane vaguely recalled watching Ranma’s strong hands cup her pale, sleeping face. He had whispered something about a prince charming, maybe? And then kissed her? She wished she could remember it more clearly.

When she arrived at the male monastery for martial arts geometry, Ranma seemed happily surprised to see her up and about so soon.  He agreed to pack and leave so they could make their original flight back. But then he decided to be difficult. 

Ranma kept interrupting his slow packing to walk over and fidget next to Akane to ask if she really felt strong enough to travel. It pissed Akane off that he was treating her like a weak little girl instead of the strong martial artist she knew herself to be. Yes, she was injured, but Akane was tough. Besides, as far as he knew, she just had a little cold.

When he started comparing her to the other women in his life, Akane finally snapped and threw her backpack at his head. When Ranma’s eyes stopped swirling from his position spread-eagled on the floor, he gasped, “Fine, we’ll leave. Whatever you want, you psycho tomboy.” Then he muttered under his breath, “Sometimes, I don’t know what your problem is.”

However, Akane noticed that as he picked up the things that had spilled from her thrown pack, he stuffed them into his own backpack instead. Akane thought about calling him on it, but to be honest, the weight of the pack had taxed her sore body during her morning hike. She decided to let him get away with it.

After a few seconds, he began casting little glances at her through his long black lashes. The looks were warm, considering, and made her wonder what he was thinking. If she hadn’t felt so poorly, she might have asked. Akane wanted to interpret those glances as affectionate, but if she asked and he started insulting her, she’d lose it again. Better to keep her temper and conserve her energy for the travel ahead.

Of course, before they could leave Ranma had to test her resolve again.

First he had to go and say goodbye to _every single member_ of the monastery.  Every time she thought he was finally done, he remembered one more person he just had to see. So he’d sit her back down and make her have a snack.

Unlike their sister temple, the male monks here had no trouble hosting a member of the opposite sex. Just when she thought they’d finally escape, a monk would wander by and want to show off their training to “Ranma’s pretty young lady.” It didn’t matter how often she protested that she wasn’t _Ranma’s_ , they still kept calling her that. Then when she made to get up to find and drag off Ranma, who kept wandering off, another one would rush up to offer her a mug of chilled juice or warm tea that she just had to try.  This happened several times over the course of Ranma’s goodbyes, which annoyed her even more because then the delays started becoming her fault.  However, the freshly squeezed juice really was amazing.

In fact, she secretly admitted that the snacks, drinks, and rests really did make her feel better. Perhaps she wasn’t as recovered as she wanted to think. But she was feeling petty and didn’t want to admit that to Ranma.

Akane considered it character growth that she could at least now acknowledge that she did such things to be petty. In the past, she wouldn’t have had enough self-awareness to realize that about her actions. It didn’t mean she had the self-control to step up and be mature about it though. _Character growth takes time_ , she justified as she popped another cracker into her mouth and glared at Ranma again for being so slow.

Ranma didn’t seem to notice her annoyance, as usual. She’d never seen him this reluctant to leave people he’d only known a day or two before. Akane guessed he just really liked them, or he felt they had saved him from math summer school and wanted to express his undying gratitude. She couldn’t think of any other reason for his odd behavior. He wasn’t even mouthing off that much to the old men, and Ranma almost always talked disrespectfully to his elders unless they blackmailed or beat on him to force him to speak with respect.

Confused and tired despite the fact that she hadn’t done anything but sit around all morning, Akane concealed a yawn and stood up as Ranma finally approached with his pack on his back. Ranma must have _finally_ talked to _everybody_. Akane had eaten so many snacks she couldn’t eat a bite more, visited the bathroom twice, and actually napped briefly while Ranma and an old man had the most boring conversation _ever_. She would almost swear they were trying to put her to sleep on purpose. But finally, Ranma declared himself ready to go.

On their way out the door, two exuberant teens hopped by playing some sort of tag involving pretending to have only one leg and kicking things at each other to dodge. One bounced off Akane, yelled sorry, and disappeared through the doorway.  The impact on her barely healing side shot a jolt of pain though Akane and whited out the edges of her vision. Feeling shaky, she nevertheless brushed off Ranma’s concern and did her best to pretend that she was fine and breathe evenly. She did NOT want to talk about that wound with Ranma. Ever. Akane could tell from the thinning of his lips that he was frustrated with her stubbornness and refusal to admit weakness, but she didn’t care. She just wanted to go home.

But then Ranma remembered one more geometry question that might be on the test.  So of course they couldn’t go until he’d run back to beg for one more kata to help him solve it. Why he didn’t remember it during all those long-winded good-byes that lasted all morning she had no idea. Taking Akane’s pack, Ranma made her sit back down on the shady veranda on a pillow. During the demonstration, a monk tried to bring her another drink, but Akane refused. She didn’t want more snacks, she wanted to leave. Yet somehow Ranma’s spotty memory for mathematical equations suddenly became photographic as he reeled off one question and proof after another. As a result, their leaving somehow dragged out for several more hours and past lunch.

Watching Ranma pick up the techniques so quickly and effortlessly only made Akane slightly envious now. In her more rational moments, she recognized how much of a normal life he’d sacrificed for that mastery. As much as she loved the Art, Akane would not wish Ranma’s childhood, or his father, on anyone. In fact, she sometimes wished she could go back and protect that pigtailed child from learning so many harsh life lessons so young. She’d suspected for some time now that Ranma’s moral compass was a bit skewed because of his unconventional upbringing. Most of the time, you couldn’t even tell that he looked at the world just a little to the left from the way that most people did. Despite that, or maybe because of it, Akane admired the good man he had become.

Also, Akane admitted in the privacy of her mind, she’d always appreciated the way Ranma’s body strained through mastering a new technique until he integrated it fully. The flexing of his muscles, the glistening drops of sweat, the intensity in his eyes… Ranma sometimes took her breath away. She also liked watching him astonish the other fighters, amazing the crowd with his talent and charisma, and then coming back to her (family’s) home at the end of the day. It made something inside her clench with fierce approval when he dominated another warrior with his skill, especially because he was never cruel about it. His quick glances her way to make sure she’d observed his winning also amused and flattered her… most of the time, at least. The rest of the time, he drove her crazy.

But Akane liked Ranma. Secretly, she always liked Ranma. She even liked him when he drove her crazy.

_Like right now_ , she sighed to herself.

As Ranma used congruent angles to knock two monks flat onto their backs in the sparring ring, Akane hid her fond smile. Yes, she definitely liked watching Ranma, though usually sneakily from underneath lowered lashes. After all, she didn’t want to be caught breathing faster and staring as sweat dripped down Ranma’s golden skin and over muscles flexing with tightly controlled power. Sometimes, when tracking a single drop of sweat on the leisurely journey from the nape of his neck down, down to disappear under the low-slung waistband of his pants, she completely forgot to breathe.

If it was only that, she could maybe forgive herself for just being a normal, hot-blooded woman and move on emotionally. But as much as she enjoyed seeing Ranma practicing martial arts, he could evoke the same breathless reaction from her simply by sitting quietly on the veranda with the breeze tousling his hair, or focusing on a textbook next to her at the table while chewing on a yellow #2 pencil. Sometimes the light would hit him just right and suddenly, Akane would forget how to breathe.

Although she tried to hide it even from herself, Akane knew she liked watching Ranma in all of his forms. Somehow, her emotions refused to distinguish between Ranma being male or female or even acting like a cat.  It was all Ranma. She’d always known him as all three. For Akane, she couldn’t cut out any part of him without sacrificing her desire for the rest.

As she shook off her thoughts and refocused on the current fight, she saw Ranma get knocked down by a snot-nosed kid using a technique that capitalized on an opponent using obtuse angles of attack.  As the kid explained how he’d won, Ranma listened intently and kept interrupting to ask more in depth questions.

_‘If only he’d spend a tenth of that energy on actually memorizing formulas while in school_ ,’ Akane thought peevishly, ‘ _I wouldn’t have to spend so many hours tutoring him at home.’_ But then again, if he did that, he either wouldn’t be such an amazing martial artist at such a young age, or he would be both incredibly smart AND a great fighter, and then be even _more_ insufferable than he already was. Akane sighed again.

When Ranma was finally, FINALLY ready to go, for real this time, he made them stop one last final time just outside the gate to redistribute the weight in their packs. Akane almost screamed, but she was so anxious to get going that she didn’t put up too big of a fight. She didn’t want to risk delaying them again.

Plus, she was maybe still a little bit weaker than she wanted to admit. Mariko might have been right that she should have waited another day.  Akane didn’t see how, but just sitting around waiting for Ranma to finish had tired her out. 

She would bite her tongue before admitting that to Ranma though. They said that pride goeth before the fall. Akane just hoped that wasn’t literal in her case. Falling down would hurt.

All day she had been expecting Ranma to ask her more details about the kidnapping, but he hadn’t. Part of that was probably because he hated acknowledging the loss of control that came with the cat fist.  The other part was that Ranma just plain didn’t like admitting to weaknesses or talking about feelings.  She was just grateful that he was too excited about mastering martial arts geometry, and boasting about how he’d ace his next math test, to question her about it now.

Of course, he was also being unusually free with his compliments towards her and gestures of affection. She noticed him touching her a lot more than usual today, placing a finger on her wrist to get her attention, or a hand on her shoulder as he introduced her to someone new. He also kept saying the nicest things about her to the monks he introduced her to. Akane didn’t know what to make of it. She liked it though.

Akane tried to focus on figuring Ranma out instead of on her aches and pains. She knew she’d probably have to get Dr. Tofu to examine the wound in her side at some point, but he was good about not forcing you to say more than you wanted to.  Besides Dr. Tofu, she didn’t think she’d have to mention her wound to anyone else back home.  In fact, she didn’t intend to.

As for Ranma, he seemed to think she had gotten sick from sleeping outside in wet clothes or something. She suspected that he felt guilty for not helping them escape and blamed himself for her getting sick, but Akane didn’t plan on enlightening him to the full truth. After all, she had initially rescued both of them by herself. Telling Ranma the truth about their near rape, getting her side cut, and the evil necklace wouldn’t absolve him of that guilt, so what was the point? Ranma would eventually get over not being the hero for once. The sooner they both forgot about this kidnapping adventure, the better, she reiterated to herself.

They had only been walking for about half an hour when Akane heard a horn honking behind them on the road.  Akane jumped, but Ranma didn’t seem too surprised.  Her side was stinging even though they’d barely walked anywhere.  It was making her sweat more than a simple walk could explain.  Luckily, Ranma didn’t seem to notice.

Waving at the man driving, Ranma jogged forward for a chat. Akane recognized him from the monastery. He’d given her a bowl of stew at lunch. Coincidentally, the driver just happened to be going in their direction.  He offered to take them to town at the base of the mountain.

Smiling in thanks, Akane blessed their good fortune and climbed into the truck.  The driver explained with a nervous laugh that he needed to buy some potatoes and carrots in town. Akane could have sworn she’d seen a huge garden behind the monastery, and several sacks of potatoes in the kitchen cupboard during those innumerable snacks, but maybe they were the wrong kind of potato or something.  The monk started giving her a confusing explanation for what they needed the carrots for when Ranma reached behind her and slapped the driver on the back of the head.  The driver broke off with another nervous laugh. He then winked at Ranma.

Akane was too worn out to think about it. She hated being sick. The purr of the engine lulled her eyelids closed and, using Ranma’s shoulder as a pillow, she drifted off into sleep. Faintly she felt his arm close around her shoulders, tenderly turning her into the protective curve of his body and tucking her head beneath his chin.

Gentle shaking roused her from slumber. It was difficult, but Akane pried herself away from the warmth of Ranma’s body. Wiping her sleep-crusted eyes, she realized that they had arrived in town.  She expected Ranma to make some sort of disparaging comment about her energy, but he stayed quiet.

On the way out to the monastery, they had mostly walked once they reached Okinawa.  Now though, Ranma insisted they take the train.  Akane didn’t want to acknowledge her lingering weakness, but she was grateful. Nevertheless, she intended to pull her weight otherwise and not be a burden. 

Despite her intentions, Ranma plucked her pack from her hand before she could swing it on and, once they boarded the train, managed to trick her into falling asleep on his shoulder again.  Akane managed to stay awake for the flight to Tokyo, but she dozed off again on the train to Nerima.  She didn’t know why she was sleeping so much (she refused to acknowledge that she’d really been that sick), but her side felt surprisingly better after each nap.

One minute she was staring out the train windows at the Tokyo cityscape and nibbling on an onigiri. She blinked heavily, and then suddenly she was opening her eyes to Ranma carrying her across the familiar rooftops of Nerima at twilight.  Akane felt warm and safe in his arms.  Ranma’s grip tightened minutely around her as he effortlessly leaped a gap between two buildings. Muscles bunched and relaxed beneath her cheek. Inhaling his familiar scent, she smiled sleepily to herself.

Pressed against Ranma like this, she could feel the awesome power he kept harnessed, power suppressed so that his calloused hands, which had fought so many foes, could cradle her gently against his body.  Sometimes, when he carried her around so carefully like this, she felt cherished.  It was a dangerous feeling to have about Ranma when he wouldn’t confirm if he liked her or not.

“I can walk, you know,” Akane finally spoke up. 

Ranma grinned down at her fondly, “I was wondering how long it would take for you to protest.  We’re almost there anyways though, so no use stopping now.” He jostled her slightly as he jumped down onto a fence railing above the canal, making Akane squeak and press herself more tightly to his chest. She felt a suppressed laugh vibrate from his torso and through her body.

“Jerk,” she muttered, “you did that on purpose so I wouldn’t try to get down.”

“Maybe I like holding you,” Ranma answered. His voice teased, but his eyes looked serious. Amazed, Akane pushed against his shoulders and tried to sit up to see his expression more clearly. Grunting, Ranma merely clutched her tighter to his chest until she gave up her struggles and relaxed into his hold.

A few minutes later, they touched down on the front porch of the Tendo dojo.  Ranma set her down carefully and stepped back, but he didn’t immediately open the door.  Instead, he scratched the back of his head sheepishly and stared at his feet. Akane looked up at his face hopefully and waited. Maybe that flirting hadn’t just been idle. Maybe he was finally going to tell her he liked her. Ranma’s mouth moved silently. He seemed to be struggling to get something out. But the porch remained silent. The shadows grew longer.

As the light disappeared, so too did Akane’s optimism. You’d think she’d learn one of these days, but she always let Ranma get her hopes up. ‘ _Idiot_ ,’ she scorned herself. Akane had been here before, many times. She would think Ranma liked her because he acted differently when they were out of town and alone together. Then they’d return home and Ranma would once again insult and ignore her. He’d hang out with other girls and protest the idea of having any affection for her at all.

_‘After all, who wanted a slow tomboy as a fiancée and future wife?’_

Depressed, Akane broke first, unable to stomach the thought of any dismissive words from Ranma right now. She had enough insults stored up already, thank you. She well knew her own faults.

As she turned away and moved forward towards door, Ranma reached out to pull her back. “Wait, Akane-,” he blurted out. His hand grasped her by the sides to bring her back, and Akane immediately flinched away from his touch. Even though his fingers had only grazed across her wounded side, it burned and throbbed painfully.

“Don’t-,”she ordered sharply, but before she could finish her thought, the door opened and Kasumi’s head poked out.

“I thought I saw Akane and Ranma jumping over the wall a few minutes ago,” Kasumi smiled cheerfully. “Welcome home.”

“Akane, you’ve returned to your poor father!” shouted her Dad, running up to the doorway as buckets of tears burst from his eyes. “Daughter, I missed you!”

Only by ducking behind Kasumi did she avoid a tight and potentially painful hug. The noise pulled Mr. Saotome to the door as well. In the commotion of their return, whatever Ranma might have been about to say to her was lost.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I suddenly pictured Kasumi as the actress who plays Jane in The Lizzie Bennet Diaries on youtube (which are awesome).


	20. Biting, dreams, and rats

After several minutes of joyous family reunion, Kasumi must have noticed the weariness on Akane’s face. “You got home later than we expected. You’ll have to tell us all about your trip tomorrow, though, since you have to get up early for school tomorrow. Go get cleaned up and go to bed,” Kasumi said with a shooing motion.

Akane sent Kasumi a grateful smile. Then she drew upon all of her acting talent and flagging strength to bid her family and Ranma goodnight without letting on about the burning pain in her side as she climbed the stairs. “Night Akane,” Ranma said with a strange look on his face, half confused and half guilty. He lingered at the top of the stairs, as if he had something more to add, but Akane didn’t have the patience to deal with him anymore tonight. 

The pain hadn’t seemed that bad during her travels with Ranma, but ever since he’d grabbed at her, she had experienced a renewed throbbing in her side. That, or snuggling up to him all evening had distracted her from her discomfort. “Goodnight, Ranma,” she replied as she walked away, not wanting to be completely churlish. Even if she was annoyed with him right now, she didn’t want to give up the idea of future snuggling when she felt better.

Finally closing the door to her room, Akane sighed as she allowed her pack to slide off her shoulder to thump against the wall. Then she gingerly drew up her shirt and checked the bandages on her side. It still looked white, so thankfully none of the stitches had popped and bled through. Slipping off her clothes, she drew on her yellow nightgown. She should probably go and brush her teeth, but she just didn’t have the energy to walk that far, much less run into anyone and carry on a conversation.

Carefully crawling into bed, Akane pulled up the covers and allowed herself to relax. She was so glad to be home and safe, even if not exactly sound. Worries boiled under the surface of her mind, but she didn’t want to deal with that right now. She just wanted to sleep. She’d deal with her problems tomorrow.

Like how to keep Ranma from noticing her wounded side until it was more healed. _Maybe she could…? No, that wouldn’t work. What about…? But he’d see through that too._

_She could just tell Ranma the truth about it… but then he’d flip out and get mad and feel guilty for no reason, and then her family would find out and_ they’d _flip out, and then everyone in town would find out, and people would treat her weird and call her weak, especially Ranma’s “girlfriends,” and Ranma and her dad would never let her go anywhere or do anything interesting ever again._

_In fact, Ranma would probably go back to how he’d been when he first moved here, hiding things from her, trying to get her to sit out challenges, and not wanting her help when things got dangerous because he assumed she was just a fragile little girl and couldn’t handle it. Like he’d survive half the things he had without her there to help him! Of course, he still sometimes tried to protect her from things, but she felt that he had come to mostly respect her abilities and appreciate her help. Plus, she’d gotten better at seeing through his attempts to “protect” her._

Huffing in annoyance, Akane reached over and set her alarm clock to get her up early so she could get out of the house before Ranma came down for breakfast. _She just wanted some privacy!_ _Maybe she’d let Ranma think she was mad at him so they could avoid each other for a while. That might work. He always acted like her anger was irrational anyways, so this wouldn’t be too surprising. He wouldn’t take it personally, and soon she’d be healed up and he’d forget about it. Ranma was good about forgiving like that,_ she thought with a guilty smile.

As Akane finally began to fall asleep, her mind insisted on drifting to earlier that day. She’d started to doze off in her seat during their travels, and her head had gotten so, so heavy, falling forward slowly, until gentle hands that she distantly recognized as Ranma’s had effortlessly shifted her body until her cheek rested on his strong chest and his arm firmly circled her back. Akane had been too drowsy to protest. Plus, he’d been really warm and very comfortable. He’d smelled quite nice, all masculine musk and Ranma-y. Then, on the cusp of sleep, she had felt a soft kiss on the crown of her head and his mouth nuzzling against her hair.

But was that last part a daydream, or really a memory? It didn’t seem like something he’d do to his un-cute fiancée, but then again, he’d been rather sweet to her the entire time they’d been in Okinawa, even when he’d been a cat. _Like when he’d licked her face_ , she thought with a blush and restless shuffle.

_Why couldn’t Ranma for once just_ say out loud _that he liked her?_ Considering his behavior for the past year, and all of the flirting he’d been doing on their trip, it certainly seemed as if he liked her as more than a friend. She wished he would finally admit to having feelings for her. It would make her life so much easier.

Akane would have given him a kiss if he just would have swayed a bit forward towards her lips on the porch. She couldn’t make the first move, because then she’d be just like all of the other girls in his life. She had too much pride for that. Besides, Akane didn’t want to take a kiss from Ranma, she wanted to share one. If only he’d give her an invitation. But no, he’d just stood there with that strange look on his face, like he was struggling with something. But he hadn’t actually said or done _anything_.

As usual, he hadn’t been able to man up. _Ranma,_ man _up?  Ha._ He was part-girl after all.

Then again, blaming it on his curse was an insult towards women in general. His inability to talk about his feelings was all his own immaturity. Of course, he had been trying to say something right before Kasumi opened the door. But it was probably a plea to not tell anyone that he was unconscious or a cat for most of the trip. _Ranma and his stupid pride._ Punching her pillow in frustration, which was nothing like the warm shoulder of her NOT-fiancé, she rolled over and started counting sheep and piglets until she slipped into sleep.

A few hours later she bolted upright out of a sound sleep, clammy with sweat and gasping raggedly for breath. Ripping up her nightgown, Akane stared at the crisp white bandage wrapped around her waist. With trembling fingers she unwound the cloth until her wound was revealed. The black stitches stood out starkly against the glow of her skin in the moonlight. Running her finger carefully over the crusted slash, Akane forced herself to start breathing regularly as she tried to make sense of the jumbled images from her nightmare. Nothing had clawed open her wound until the stitches hung like an honor guard of small black spiders, and no small, pearl-white shapes had clawed into or out of her flat stomach while she was sleeping.

It had only been a dream.

Flinging her soaked nightgown off and onto the floor, Akane wiped cold sweat off her upper lip and onto her counterpane. Unsteady hands secured the bandages back around her waist. Then, with visible effort, Akane forced herself to lie back down.

Suppressing the hitch in her breath that wanted to escape, Akane reminded herself that Ranma was just down the hall. If she called out, he would come running. She didn’t _need_ Ranma to protect her, but if she wanted him to, he would sit by her bedside and crush anything that even looked at her funny. It was a comforting thought.

Nevertheless, she was still unable to settle down. Pursing her lips, Akane bundled up all of the negative emotions, took a deep breath, and tried to blow them away from her with one long exhale. Then she thought very hard about the adorableness of Yuka’s new kitten, and how her sprinkles had disintegrated into the ice cream Ranma had bought her in a kaleidoscope of colors. Maybe she’d borrow Yuka’s kitten, and then the kitten and Ranma-cat would both curl up on her bed and snuggle her to sleep. Finally able to relax, her breathing evened out naturally and she slipped back into sleep.

* * *

 

The next morning, Ranma luxuriated in his futon until he heard Kasumi call him for breakfast. He’d had an awesome dream the night before. It was rapidly dissipating in the light of day, but he still vaguely remembered slowly licking Akane’s face while they sat in the middle of a hallway. She hadn’t hit him for it, either. If only he could remember more of it. A delightful shiver went through him as he lingered on the image. He wished he could remember what her cheek tasted like in the dream. It wasn’t like she’d let him check the taste in real life any time soon.

For a moment he considered not going downstairs, and instead trying to chase after the remainder of that fantasy. However there was school today. For his part he didn’t really care, but Akane would insist on going. He wouldn’t make her go alone. Besides, he needed to make sure she wasn’t still mad at him from last night. She’d seemed mad on the porch and had sorta avoided meeting his eyes in the living room afterward.

Besides which, Pops would eat all the food if he didn’t go down. He hadn’t eaten Kasumi’s cooking in days, and he’d missed it. In particular, he was craving fish. He’d kill for some fish. Groaning in defeat, Ranma sat up and stretched. At least they were home. He was so glad to be back in his own territory.

Okinawa had been unsettling. The failure of his plans was discouraging, and his actions, or more like the lack of them, made him frustrated and ashamed. Plus, ever since he’d woken up from the cat fist with Akane so pale and sick sleeping on the bed in front of him, he’d had the strangest feeling, like something was lurking behind his back and glaring at him malevolently. He hadn’t even consciously noticed it until the feeling had disappeared on the plane ride and he’d suddenly felt himself relax. He hoped that creepy feeling was gone for good.

As he grabbed his clothes and got dressed, his mind turned again to Akane and the day before. Things had been going well with her, really well despite his uselessness when they’d gotten kidnapped. He’d kept giving in to these overwhelming urges to touch her and hold her close, to take care of her, and she’d barely resisted him at all. They’d even openly flirted with each other as he roof-hopped them home! Sure she’d been really tired and sore still from being sick, but her blushes and small smiles had filled him with warmth.

But then on the porch, she’d turned and looked at him with this heavy weight of expectation in her eyes. Unfortunately, he didn’t know just what she was expecting. The porch light had cast shadows on her face and highlighted the perfect round point of her nose. He really liked the shape of Akane’s nose. The rest of her body was limned by the yellow porch light. He really liked the shape of Akane’s body, too.

Unsure of what to do or say, he’d let his eyes trace down the light highlighting all of Akane’s exquisite curves. That proved to be a mistake. Ranma’s mind had quickly gone quiet except for an animalistic urge to suddenly do something very inappropriate and very physical with Akane on that porch. The unexpected strength and suddenness of those animalistic urges frightened and excited him in turns.

His control started to slip.

Slowly he clenched and unclenched his fists. A rising part of Ranma wanted to wrench Akane around until her shoulders smacked into his chest and her backside molded flush against his thighs, tangle his hand in her short hair, yank her head to the side until the muscles of her neck trembled, and bite the back of her neck until she stopped struggling and surrendered to him. Finding words to answer her expectant look while simultaneously restraining the eager twitching of his fingers proved impossible. He only had enough energy for one of those tasks, and he regretfully decided that biting was out. So was rubbing his face through each shadowed hollow on Akane’s body. There wasn’t enough time and that would cause too much trouble right now. Better to concentrate on trying to say something intelligible.

He’d had somewhat physical thoughts about Akane before, but these were much stronger and more vivid than ever. Even knowing all of the hurt that would come down on him from trying anything with Akane, considering the family members waiting just inside those doors, couldn’t quite quiet the eager voice describing how amazing she must feel and smell and taste. 

_She’s waiting for you, expecting you to sweep her off her feet and devour her. This is what Akane wants too,_ his lust cajoled.

_But she doesn’t want that_ , he told himself sharply. There was no way a good girl like Akane could want or even imagine all of the bad things Ranma fantasized about doing with her.  No way would she want him to bite her. The truth of his primitive urges would probably scare her away.

Ranma reminded himself that scaring Akane away would ruin everything, even their friendship. Although he could survive without her love, Ranma couldn’t survive without Akane’s friendship. He needed her. Akane’s presence in his life had become like water, sometimes taken for granted, occasionally annoying and causing him trouble, but always able to quench his thirst, and absolutely necessary for survival.

At this point, Ranma couldn’t even picture a happy life without Akane in it in some form or another. Although he refused to ever allow himself to become as weak and, frankly, as useless as Mr. Tendo, Ranma could now understand how he’d gotten that way. Soun Tendo was emotionally unstable because he’d lost the love of his live, his wife and the mother of his children.

Ranma didn’t need or want to empathize with Mr. Tendo. But then Jusendo had happened. A few weeks after holding what he thought was Akane’s dead body in his arms, he’d looked at Soun Tendo and thought, _oh, that’s how someone gets like that._ And after that, he couldn’t forget or run away from that understanding.

It was ridiculous.

He resented it, sometimes, this power Akane had over him. He hoped she never found out. Maybe if he’d been raised normally with a happy childhood and loving parents, or if he hadn’t met her right after he got his curse, or even if he’d let himself be seduced by Shampoo once or twice, maybe then he wouldn’t have this vulnerability.  Maybe Akane would never have become his weak spot.

Women had always been a bit confusing and mysterious, to be honest. He hadn’t even been that interested in girls until he’d met Akane. He’d interacted with very few girls at all outside of tournaments, and most of the places he and his pops trained at were filled with men. All he’d cared about was the Art.

Someone must surely be laughing at him, because first he’d fallen into that stupid spring which made him turn into a girl, and then he’d moved into a house with three women, been stalked by several more girls who claimed to love him, and found a female best friend in Akane. Then Akane had become something more than just a friend, and he found himself wanting to possess all of her.

Sure, Shampoo’s and Kodachi’s little seductions were usually embarrassing and terrifying. But later on in the privacy of his own room, they had given him fodder for his fantasies. Of course, they’d really hate to know that it was somehow always Akane who slinked into his dreams and starred in their scenarios. Maybe that was how Kima was able to fool him for a few minutes into thinking she was really Akane.

Ranma found life with Akane exhilarating.  He loved how they butted heads and challenged each other in public.  Those public challenges sometimes led to secret nighttime fantasies about private challenges where he dominated and she submitted, or where she forced him to bend to her will, and either way they both emerged satisfied. He secretly adored how she acted so protective of him, even though he didn’t really need anyone to protect him and hadn’t for years.  He knew that if she ever accepted his love, she’d protect his heart as fiercely as she protected her friends, pride, and family honor.

Ranma wanted his ring on her finger, his last name in her signature, his pillow smelling of her hair, and the sure knowledge that his heart was safe in her keeping. He wanted her to willingly give him that. He didn’t want to take it, or to have marriage forced on her by her family. Force would tarnish such a commitment. He’d dreamed once of Akane introducing herself to someone on the street as a Saotome instead of a Tendo, and it had kept him warm and contented for an entire week. He’d even eaten her cooking with almost a smile. Ranma wanted her willing, and willing for the _right_ reasons.

_If only he could coax Akane into loving him. He knew she cared for him. Maybe he could start his coaxing by seducing her here on the porch? She might not object to just a little nip along that tendon running down the side of her neck…._

No, he was being stupid. If she knew what he wanted to do to her, she’d bash him in the head with a tanuki statue from the garden and run screaming. He needed to act normal for her and woo her like a normal boy would. If only he could figure out what normal wooing looked like.

Despite his wild thoughts and urges, Ranma stayed in control. He forced his fingers to stay clenched and moved them behind him back, farther away from temptation. He had the discipline to suppress his desires, even if just barely. But maybe one day he could give in to some of them, not all but surely some, if he could just win Akane’s love.

Akane herself was passionate and loyal. Sometimes, he thought she felt possessive of him just like he felt possessive of her. They were so close to figuring this relationship out that he could almost taste it.

In fact, Ranma wanted to smell and taste every inch of Akane, even in places that she would be embarrassed about…. maybe especially in those places, because he wanted to imprint everything about her into his memory and her blushes were _gorgeous_. If it was a part of Akane, he _burned_ to know about it. Of course he wanted to know the usual things, like how the taste of her mouth changed from before and after a kiss. He wanted to memorize the scent and feel of her arousal as it pumped her blood faster and harder, examining the effects on the skin both exposed and concealed by her clothes. Ranma wanted the feel of her lips beneath his, her tongue gliding against his own, her moans vibrating against his mouth and chest.  

Yes, he wanted that.

But also, and perhaps this part wasn’t normal as none of the boys in the locker room ever mentioned such things, Ranma wanted to know the salty difference in taste between a tear trembling on the edge of her jaw and a bead of her sweat. And did that sweat taste different sliding down the back of her thigh or over her temple? What did she smell and taste like just under her breasts, where the sweat gathered from the press of her bra, and did that differ from the scent lingering in the small of her back? Would she let him bury his face in the crook of her neck, between her legs, behind her knee, and just breathe in as deeply as possible to memorize her scent? Would she let him catch her before a bath washed all her secrets away, and run his nose and tongue over all of her hidden nooks and crannies until his curiosity was sated?

It wasn’t even sexual, this desire to explore her body. Or rather it was, but not _just_ sexual. Ranma wanted to _know_ everything that made up Akane. He wanted to own that knowledge. He wanted her everything. Maybe, with a lot of luck, she’d want to know him that way too.

Ranma wanted to crush her to his chest and plunder her mouth in a savage kiss, he wanted to run his eyelashes gently down the crest of her cheek and feel her shiver, he wanted to hold her hand without blushing, he wanted to drop to his knees and ask her to marry him, he wanted to hug her tightly and order her to never leave him, he wanted to shout that he loved her, he wanted to tease her until she couldn’t breathe for laughing, he wanted to suck a bruise into the side of her neck too high to cover up so all of those stupid boys would know she was his, he wanted to curl a strand of her hair around his fingers and memorize all of the shades, he wanted to kiss the round tip of her nose and catalogue each freckle.

Most secret of all, Ranma wanted to hold Akane tightly, bury his face into the crook of her neck to hide his expression, and beg. He wanted to beg her to accept him as a husband, beg her to protect their children from outside threats and from his own stupid ideas, beg her to never let him become like his father, and no matter how they fought, beg her to keep him forever and always love him no matter his usefulness.  

But he couldn’t do that. What he wanted to do didn’t matter. Now was not the time. Ranma needed to be in control of himself. He needed to think about what Akane needed and what action would get her to react the way he wanted her to. He had to pick the right time and right place. This wasn’t it. They were both tired, she was still recovering from her cold, and their families would notice them out here any minute now and interrupt.

Ranma had opened and closed his mouth, trying to find something normal to say, trying to decide what would answer the question on her face that he couldn’t quite decipher. But before he could, Akane had gotten mad and turned away from him in a huff. He’d tried to stop her, but she’d jumped away from him and then the door had opened with the family behind it and the moment had been lost.

It had derailed his struggle at least, but he didn’t know why she had gotten so mad. Sure, he’d been a little slow to say whatever it was she wanted him to say, though she could have said something herself or given him a clue instead of just waiting there, but suddenly she went from accepting his touch and sending him little smiles during their journey to flinching away in disgust? What had he done wrong? Had she guessed that he’d been thinking of biting her and maybe something more? But no, he’d kept enough control to hide that, he was pretty sure. He hadn’t even said anything offensive this time!

If she would have just been a little more patient, he might have gotten himself sorted out and been able to figure out what she wanted him to say. Then again, patient was not a word that ever described Akane. Sometimes, most of the time, Ranma just did not get Akane and her moods.

Shaking his head in frustration, he wiped palms sweaty from his thoughts onto his pants. He should be used to not understanding Akane by now. Hopefully, she’d be over her temper this morning at breakfast. If not, he could always try a vague apology on the way to school and see if that fixed things. Although quick to anger, Akane didn’t hold a grudge.

Leaving his room, he padded down the steps, entered the dining room, and sat down at the table. Mr. Tendo and Pops were already eating, while Kasumi sat placidly sipping tea and reading a small book. “Akane still sleeping?” he asked as he stole the last fish from his pops plate and stuffed it into his wide-opened mouth.

_Mmm, fish!_ Quickly he stole the fish off Mr. Tendo’s plate while he had his eyes closed during a sip of tea. Normally Ranma only stole from his pop’s plate, but this was _fish_. This morning, for some reason, Ranma craved succulent, juicy fish like never before.

Mr. Tendo cleared his throat and put down his rice bowl. “Akane got up early this morning to go into school to…” he floundered for a second as his chopsticks clicked on his empty plate. Blinking in confusion, he finished explaining, “do something. It was early.”

Frowning, Ranma swallowed the luscious fish in his mouth, licked his lips, and bit into a glob of rice. Thus fortified, he asked, “You sure you don’t remember nothin’ ‘bout why?” He was surprised she hadn’t mentioned last night that she planned on leaving early. He blocked his pop’s chopsticks as they attacked his bowl, and opened his mouth to question Kasumi instead.

Before he could start, Mr. Tendo threw back his head and started crying huge tears. “What a bad father I am, not listening to my baby!” he wailed.

“There, there, Father,” Kasumi soothed, not even looking up from her teacup.

“And you!” he roared, pointing at Ranma, suddenly looking demonic. “Why did you leave my baby defenseless to walk all by herself to school?”

“Defenseless? Are we talking about the same girl here?” Ranma replied as he cowered from Mr. Tendo’s demonic visage.

Mr. Tendo ignored Ranma’s words and became hysterical again. “Anything could happen to a pretty young woman like Akane walking all by herself!” he cried as streams of water splashed down his cheeks. Then he turned and shouted, “How could you abandon your future wife like that? Have you no sense of duty? Oh, my poor baby!”

Now in addition to tears, spittle spattered Ranma. It was gross. And wet. If Ranma wasn’t careful, he’d turn into a girl soon. Mornings like this sucked. He might sympathize with Mr. Tendo, but that didn’t mean he approved of his behavior. Cowering even farther away from the rain of tears, and feeling a small amount of guilt despite knowing that Akane could take care of herself, Ranma was on the verge of fleeing when Kasumi placed a small, pale finger on her father’s sleeve.

“Father, you aren’t going to cause water damage to the floorboards again, are you? You know how difficult that is to fix with our limited income right now,” she said placidly. Mr. Tendo deflated like a popped balloon, sniffled back his tears, and mumbled an apology. Kasumi smiled calmly, took a sip of tea, and then added softly, “I’m sure Akane is fine.”

Problem diffused, Ranma allowed himself to creep back to the table and take another bite of rice. Turning to Ranma, Kasumi asked, “Were you planning to linger over breakfast? Did you want Akane’s portion, since she left for school early?” One of Kasumi’s eyebrows arched. That arch wasn’t a question, it was a subtle command.

Ranma flinched, choked on the rice he was swallowing, and began violently coughing as he lurched to his feet. “O-of course not, Kasumi. I’m full, thank you,” he answered hoarsely with a nervous laugh. “I’ll just hurry and see if I can catch up with Akane.”

Ranma had learned to read between her words, and that arched eyebrow meant trouble. He knew an order when he heard one. If he stayed and ate Akane’s food, he would regret it.

Even more than anyone else in the house, you did not cross Kasumi. She was sweetness and light 99% of the time. When Ranma accidentally disappointed her, he felt horribly guilty. If that wasn’t bad enough, when crossed, her retribution was unexpected, embarrassing, utterly vicious, and almost impossible to trace back to her. You disappointed Kasumi at your own peril. Ranma had learned that lesson _very_ quickly in the Tendo household.

Trotting to his room, he grabbed his school bag. He paused for a moment and felt down his spiritual link to check on Akane. She really could take care of herself, but better safe than sorry since she also had horrible luck. The cord of energy stretching between them told Ranma that Akane was near the school already. She’d probably just passed by the canal, considering the distance between them. Everything he got from her seemed fine.

However, something was different about the connection this morning. It felt slightly muted compared to the last two days. On top of that, there was a faint feeling of… something else. Dropping down into a light meditation, Ranma tried to clarify that feeling.  It proved elusive. For a flicker of a second, it almost felt like a predator was crouched just behind him, spying on his check up on Akane and creeping down the cord he’d lashed between the two of them. It was similar to the feeling of being watched he’d had in Okinawa. It made the hair on the back of Ranma’s neck stand on end.

Then, between one heartbeat and the next, the feeling disappeared as if it had never been there.

Ranma whipped around and spread out his ki, but felt nothing unusual. Flipping out his window and up onto the roof, Ranma surveyed the Tendo property, but he couldn’t find a trace of any spies. He examined the bond, but it felt fine now. Nothing was out of the ordinary. No ominous feelings remained.

Could he have just imagined that feeling? After all, he didn’t exactly know what he was doing with this ki bond between the two of them. For all he knew, that feeling might be normal. Ranma could still sense Akane better than he could last week, even if the cord felt slightly weaker than yesterday.  

_I’ll keep an eye out, but try not to worry about it unless something else happens_ , he decided. There wasn’t much else he could do. If there were any problems coming, he was confident he could deal with them. But he didn’t dare ask anyone any questions, for fear they’d disapprove of the spiritual tie and try to take it away.

Plus, they’d probably have to tell Akane about it to fix it, and he wasn’t quite ready for that conversation. So far, he’d avoided speculating about her reaction beyond knowing that she’d be _angry_. He would have to tell her someday, but that would be later when he could control the fallout and had several options for retreating and hiding until her anger passed. As he picked up his backpack, he told himself not to think about it now, shook his worries away, and jumped down into the yard. Slipping into the kitchen to grab his lunchbox silently off the counter, Ranma then jogged off to school.

Winter was fast approaching and the air was nippy. Ranma found it refreshing as he ran along the fence tops. He liked winter. Water falling from the sky _froze_ in winter. Snow didn’t drench you the way rain would. Summer rain always turned him female, and usually at the most inconvenient times. Sure, he sometimes found being female useful, but only when he got to control the change. Control was important to Ranma. He hated any lack of control or choice. He had enough of that in his life without adding to it.

Ranma let his pace slow a bit as he admired the red-gold clouds reflecting in the water of the canal. He was going to miss walking around Nerima when he graduated and his mom made them move back in with her. He was going to miss a lot of things about living here. Even the thought of living long term without Akane opened a black hole of sucking despair in his mind. But that was at the end of the school year. He still had a while yet to fix that, so no use worrying about it this morning. His Okinawa plan had failed, miserably and embarrassingly, but he would regroup and make a new plan to win Akane. For now, he’d use the Saotome Secret Technique, and let his feelings retreat and regroup until he had a new plan of attack.

Hopping down from the fence, Ranma turned his head at a rustling sound on his left. Two mangy rats were scrabbling over a bit of melon bread in the alleyway. _Dirty, filthy, vile things,_ he thought with a disgusted curl of his lip. Immediately his heart rate increased and his vision sharpened. R _ats are evil,_ screeched something deep in his psyche _. Kill them!_

Loping forward silently, Ranma leapt into the ally, snatched them up in his hands, and casually snapped both of their necks with his thumbs. Their little warm bodies twitched in his hands for almost a minute because of the forced release of neurotransmitters. Vaguely he remembered someone explaining it to him once. Ranma watched detachedly until they stopped twitching. He had to make sure they were dead. Part of him wished there were more rats around to kill.

One rat in particular needed to die. Ranma hadn’t seen it yet, but he would recognize _that rat_ when he did. Then he’d kill it and his duty would be complete. Throwing the now limp bodies into a trashcan, he brushed his hands off on his thighs and continued his walk. The sky this morning really was beautiful.

_Was that weird?_ Ranma asked himself softly as he absently dodged a puddle on the sidewalk. _Nah, don’t worry about it,_ that same voice from down deep purred. _Rats are our enemy. It’s our duty to kill ‘em._ So appeased, Ranma continued on his way to school.

A few minutes later, he came up behind a group of students on the narrow lane. Ranma decided to just enjoy the walk instead of pushing his way through or jumping around them. Akane was fine and it was a nice morning. He should concentrate on enjoying the now and let the future take care of itself for a while.

Directly in front of him strolled a snuggling couple. The girl was suctioned onto the guys arm like a barnacle. He’d probably have to scrape her off once they got to class, Ranma thought with a snort.

Although Ranma wanted Akane’s love, he couldn’t ever see himself enjoying her clinging to his arm and acting like that. A high-pitched giggle made him wince. Thank goodness Akane had too much self-respect for that. If Akane ever acted like the girl up there, Ranma would check her for potions and curses.

It took him a few minutes, but he finally figured out how he knew the couple. Ranma couldn’t remember the guy’s name, just that he played some sport but didn’t do martial arts or have any classes with Ranma since Literature last year, and wasn’t worth Ranma’s time. The girl was named Miaka something.

Akane sometimes got a sad look on her face when she saw the girl, but Ranma had never gotten her to explain why except that they used to be friends a long time ago. It was enough to make him avoid Miaka. Anyone who would stop being friends with Akane, and who made Akane _sad_ instead of mad, had to be selfish and heartless. If she’d been a guy, he’d probably have picked a fight with her a long time ago just for the satisfaction of punching her in the face for making Akane feel that way.

After a minute or two, another group of students joined the front of the group, and he saw the guy tilt his head and blatantly check out the legs of the girl walking in front of him. Admittedly, she had a very short skirt and very nice legs, if a bit skinny and lacking muscle tone. But even Ranma knew it was poor taste to do something like that with a girl on your arm. Miaka obviously saw him do it too, because Ranma saw her flinch as if she’d been slapped and start to pull away. However, instead of hitting him like Ranma expected, she just firmed her lips, squeezed herself more tightly against his side, and tried to whisper something in his ear.

“Sure, Baby, sure,” the guy said absently. But he didn’t lift his gaze from his ogling.

_What a sleezeball,_ Ranma thought. Miaka’s face got more and more desperate and despairing as they walked, until finally Ranma couldn’t take it anymore. Miaka had once been Akane’s friend, after all, and he hated seeing a girl in distress.

Pity had him kicking a rock at the bottom of the boyfriend’s feet to make him stumble just long enough for Ranma to maneuver himself in front of them. Then he slowed down his pace, allowing a trio of boys to crowd in from a side ally. Now there were at least four bodies to block the guy’s view. Hopefully, that Miaka chick wised up soon and dumped the jerk.

When he reached the school, Ranma forgot Miaka and her problems, and started looking around for Akane. She wasn’t in any of the usual places, but it didn’t worry him too much. The connection between them let him know she was here, but it had gone all vague and refused to be specific again. When he tried to concentrate on it, he started to get the feeling that someone was calling him nosy, which was ridiculous. He’d almost swear their connection had a mind of its own now or something, with the way it was behaving. It was definitely stronger but at the same time more capricious.  Ranma sighed, but reminded himself that Akane knew how to take care of herself. They should be more worried about the state of any idiot who’d think to bother Akane instead of the other way around.

Although she still hadn’t achieved the level of someone like Shampoo, Akane’s fighting skills had improved tremendously since he’d first met her. Considering how Ukyo had let some of her training lapse as the business side of her okonomiyaki restaurant chain expanded, he had a suspicion that Akane could now take her as long as she didn’t lose her temper. Considering the divine taste of Ukyo’s food though, Ranma thought it might be a fair trade, especially if Ukyo kept giving him free samples. The Kuno siblings had been outmatched by Akane for at least a year too. Any run of the mill bully or burglar would become pulp beneath Akane’s fist.

It was only the dangerous martial artists and monsters that Ranma attracted that Akane needed to worry about. That jerk Pantyhose Tarou could definitely beat her. She also still couldn’t take someone like Ryoga, but the Lost Boy would sooner pull out his canines with pliers than fight with Akane and risk physically hurting her.

Of course, when she found out that Ryoga was P-chan, she probably would pull out his canines with pliers. Akane would be emotionally crushed too. Ranma really hoped he was far away when that happened, because as soon as she got over being hurt, she put so much hurt on both him and Ryoga that they’d be feeling it for years.

As he walked up the path outside the building, Ranma let his gaze drift aimlessly across the school front until it snagged on a second floor window. The face inside instantly snapped into focus. He’d found Akane. She was talking to someone out of sight from this angle. Rays of the rising sun brought out tawny highlights in her dark hair and gilded her profile. Feeling like he’d been kicked in the chest by a mule, or even worse, punched by Ryoga, Ranma suddenly couldn’t move or even breathe. He could only stop and stare and _want_.

Then Akane glanced out the window. Their eyes met like a key sliding into a lock. Ranma felt like he teetered on the edge of a precipice, and that if he didn’t touch her right this second he might explode. But before he could coil his muscles for a leap, the cord between them unfurled strong and solid without his reaching for it, saturating him with the warm essence of Akane and pulling him barely back to self-control.

As he watched, Akane’s rosy lips parted and drew in a quick gasp of air. Pink bloomed in her cheeks like a flower opening to the dawn and he would swear he saw her eyes dilate. Then she jerked as if someone had touched her arm, looked down, and moved away from the window. The energy flowing between them cut off as soon as she disappeared.

Ranma felt like a puppet with cut strings. Moving over to lean against a tree, he closed his eyes and drew in several shaky breaths as he tried to calm down. When had his control gotten so weak? Why were these urges suddenly so strong? Did going to Okinawa change something?

He needed to keep himself disciplined or someone could get hurt. Not to mention that if he wasn’t careful, Akane would find out about the dark places lurking in his mind. She wouldn’t like what she found there.

Akane could never know how he thought about biting the back of her neck, not letting go until she stopped bucking and kicking and went limp and languid beneath his body. She could never know how he wanted her to let him bite her somewhere, somewhere she chose so she could see it too, just hard enough to break the skin and make a scar, so they could both look at it anytime they liked and know that she would carry his mark forever. He wanted her to bite him back, hard and maybe a little vicious, on the inside of his left wrist closest to his heart where the blood flowed strongest, so he could rub his fingers over the scar any time he liked, feel the pulse of blood beneath it, and think of her.

Akane would be shocked and disgusted.

Today, he was finding it difficult to care.

Ranma forced himself to focus on breathing for 60 seconds, _in and out… tick… tock… in and out… tick… tock,_ until he finally felt in control again and confident that he wasn’t about to do anything drastic, like go bounding up the side of the building to pounce on Akane. Nevertheless, he made a mental note to avoid her for a few days until he got himself more under control and figured out what the heck was going on.  Maybe he just needed to meditate more to settle himself after being in the cat fist so long. He’d add an hour of meditation to his schedule for the next week.

Ranma stepped away from the tree and made his way inside the building and over to his locker. After storing his bento and several books, he heard someone hiss, “Psst, Ranma!” Looking over his shoulder, he saw Hiroshi and Daisuke gesturing down the hall.

Curious, he closed the locker door and joined his friends. Looking at where they were pointing, Ranma had to blink and rub at his eyes. Gosunkugi was walking down the hall hand in hand with a girl he’d never seen before. She was cute too, with long legs, large eyes, and long, wavy brown hair topped by two black bows. Admittedly she had a strange tattoo on her forehead mostly hidden by her bangs, but that didn’t detract from her attractiveness. The contrast with Gosunkugi’s stooped shoulders, sallow skin, and sunken eyes was almost comical.

As they watched, the girl reached up and untangled a bit of dried white wax from the hair above his ear and then kissed him on the cheek adoringly. The wax must have come from the candles he wore on a headband when he was trying to cast hexes on people. Was there any way that girl could know where that wax came from and not want to run away screaming?

“How did that happen?” Hiroshi asked in shock. “How did Gosunkugi of all people get a girl like that? It has to be magic, no way a girl would be with him otherwise while we’re still single.” He ignored Ranma’s snort and continued, “One of those crazy spells of his must have finally worked.”

Daisuke asked, “Could he cast one for us do you think?”

“Don’t be an idiot,” Ranma said as he rolled his eyes.

 “Who do you think she is?” added Daisuke, refusing to be deterred. “Well Ranma, you must know ‘er. What’s her name? Can you introduce us when she dumps Gosunkugi?”

Folding his arms behind his head and leaning back against the bank of lockers, Ranma examined the couple. “I dunno who she is,” he answered, “why do you think I would?”

Hiroshi sighed and slapped Ranma on the shoulder, “Because all of the girls know you, man. They either want to kiss you or kill you. Everybody knows that.”

Daisuke nodded his head in agreement.

“But if you steal the affections of a girl who looks like _that_ , and is willing to give Gosunkugi the time of day, you’d better watch out for curses. Especially since it looks like his magic works now,” Hiroshi warned. “Though I’ll take her off your hands after that,” he added with an expansive gesture. “You don’t need more difficult women.”

“Yes, I’d like to get my hands on her myself,” Daisuke leered and both boys laughed lecherously.

Ranma rolled his eyes again and slapped both guys on the back of the head, though not as hard as they probably deserved. “Shut up, I don’t know her and I don’t want to know her,” Ranma protested.  “Sure the whole thing looks weird, but Gosunkugi can keep her. I don’t plan on getting involved.”

Hiroshi just snorted, “Whatever you say, man, whatever you say.”

Of course, before the week was out, Ranma had to eat his words.

 


	21. Death threats and blue water

For the first few days, Ranma paid no attention to the weird rumors of mysteriously drained students that started surfacing at school. Furinkan High was a weird place with weird people, and Hinako-Sensei did like to drain naughty students. It’s not like weird rumors were _unusual_.

Besides, he kept getting distracted by other things.

Whatever he’d done by delving into the cat fist had altered something in his mind. After three days of intense training and meditation, he still only roughly understood the differences. When he forced his thoughts to quiet and sank into a basic, animalistic clarity, he found that his senses became more acute and his strength increased. His reaction times in his boy form matched the speed of his female form, and his female form was off the charts of anything he’d ever achieved before.   

It was amazing!

Of course, when he allowed himself to become more animalistic, he also found himself doing strange things, like chasing away stray animals from around the dojo, absently scratching gouges above the window of Akane’s room (luckily she’d been gone at the time), and contemplating some permanent solutions to his problems (the kind of permanent that required a body bag… if they could find enough pieces to fill one). Things seemed so much more black and white when he let that part of his mind out to play. Unfortunately, Ranma had figured out that he wasn’t always noticing the shift in thinking. He’d begun to suspect that he was allowing the cat fist part of his mind to influence his thoughts and actions much more than he’d intended to.  He wasn’t sure what or who he’d be when he finally reached equilibrium.

It was disturbing.

Ranma had spent his entire life disciplining his capacity for violence. He was comfortable with it and trusted himself to respond with just enough force, but not too much. He’d tamped down the strange urges as much as he could, but in the back of his mind he knew: there was no going back. Somehow, Ranma needed to come to grips with this. He would take the physical improvements, especially since he didn’t have any idea on how to stop it, but he refused to compromise his personal code of honor along the way.

With this weighing on his mind, it took him until Thursday to notice something was off at school. Ranma was walking down the hall with Akane and her friend Yuka, lazily discussing the newest fashion statement made by the principle. Both girls were laughing, which filled Ranma with smug contentment.

Akane’s friendship, when he bothered to think about it instead of just taking it and her for granted, was not only a comfort, it was fun. He loved teasing her, and had gotten better lately at getting her riled up without hurting her feelings. Even though any romance between them had stalled, and they had barely seen each other in the few days since their return from Okinawa, simple moments like this made him happy.

Suddenly, Ranma heard a female voice shout from behind, “Ranma Saotome, you vile oppressor of the innocent! Die!” The most surprising thing about the shout wasn’t the insult, it was that he didn’t recognize the voice. He hadn’t pissed anyone off lately that he knew of.

Also, the words were pretty standard fare, to be honest. He’d heard better death threats. So it was with a slightly lackadaisical attitude that he reacted. He’d barely started to even swing around when he glimpsed Gosunkugi’s new girlfriend. She was glaring at him, with her forehead tattoo glowing an eerie purple and her two bows surging straight towards his neck!

Before he could dodge (which he totally would have), Akane grabbed his shirt and slammed him hard against the wall with a _bang_! This pulled Ranma barely out of the path of the razor-sharp bows, which sliced through a classroom door, four feet of wall, and a cubist painting of a pineapple. “Thanks,” he gasped, since the wind had been knocked out of him.

As there were stunned students eating lunch in the classroom behind the broken door, and several blasé students who just kept on eating and ignored the usual chaos, Ranma decided to get the crazy girl outside and away from potential victims. He had lots of practice with this sort of thing. Death threats were always fun to deal with. Plus, it looked like she might be someone new and interesting to fight with. The day was looking up.

Hopping over to the nearest window, he pried it open and called back over his shoulder, “Hey psycho chick, you’re going to have to try harder than that to kill me!” Then he leaped down to the ground below with a smile, ignoring Akane’s exasperated, “Honestly, Ranma!”

The girl only paused briefly before jumping up onto the windowsill, leaping over to a nearby tree, and shimmying down the trunk. Tossing her brown hair back over her shoulder and straightening her bows, the girl stalked towards Ranma with an angry growl. “After all you’ve done to my Gosu-chan, how dare you run from your well-deserved death!”

“Gosu-chan? Wait, are you talking about Gosunkugi? What did I ever do to him?” Ranma asked with a bit of confusion. Scratching his head, he couldn’t really think of anything except scaring the kid once in a while when he tried some scheme to get Ranma away from Akane. The guy was delusional though, if he thought Akane would date him even if Ranma was out of the picture.

Her bows snapped out ahead of her body as she quivered with rage. “Like you don’t know!” she shrieked. “Crushing his poor heart, stomping on his dreams, keeping him from living the life he deserves. Saotome, it is _all_ _your fault_. For that, I will punish you as you deserve!”

Rolling his eyes, Ranma bounced on his toes and prepared to probe her martial defenses. He could use a good fight, even if it was over something that wasn’t his fault, as usual. As her bows shot towards his chest, Ranma flipped back, twisted, and then cartwheeled to the side in a capoeira move he’d been dying to use ever since he’d learned it last month.

The bows missed by several feet and embedded into the ground. They quivered for a second and then snapped back to hover around her face threateningly. She growled and the light from her forehead tattoo became brighter. He didn’t find it very menacing, to be honest. Ranma was thinking that he might have to pretend to twist his ankle or something to make the fight interesting.

“If I’d let him do what he wanted, he’d be trying to date Akane instead of you. Don’t tell me you wanna see your Gosu-chan panting after Akane?” Ranma threw out. In his experience, jealousy was a sure-fire way to push a woman off-guard.

But she didn’t react the way he expected.

Instead of flying into a jealous rage and blindly attacking, she absently ran her finger back and forth at the base of her throat and smiled. It wasn’t a very nice smile, more of a smirk. “Obviously Akane has already been taken and claimed by another,” she said dismissively. “She won’t be a problem for very much longer with _that_ fate hanging over her head and tying her down. Can’t you see the mark looped around her Ki?”

Ranma’s enjoyment disappeared into ashes as he glanced across the courtyard at where Akane was emerging from a stairwell with several other students. Akane looked the same as usual to Ranma. He hadn’t noticed any mark, and he now had a spiritual tie with her. Wouldn’t he notice something like that, even if he was just barely figuring this thing out? Turning back to his opponent, Ranma tried to think of a reply when she started to giggle cruelly.

“You can’t see it, can you? You cling to Akane so tightly, and in the process push her further into his arms, making it easier for him to find and take her, making it easier for them to grow. Poor, poor Ranma,” she cooed with patently false sympathy.

Who was this girl? And what did she know about Akane? Or was she just making it up, trying to rattle him by using Akane’s name? Suppressing the urge, which felt natural but should feel unusual, to shut her up with a clawing Ki strike to her stupid giggling face, Ranma took a deep breath.

He needed to know more. Ranma opened his mouth to throw an insult at her precious Gosu-chan, maybe get her to say something useful. But then a quavering little voice called, “S-s-snookums? There you are. It’s lunchtime.”

Immediately the cruel glint disappeared from her eyes, the razor bows of death fell limply back into her hair, and an innocent pink blush suffused her cheeks. “Gosu-chan!” she cried in a sweet, high voice, turning from Ranma and running to the hollow-cheeked Gosunkugi standing in the doorway to the school. Threading her arm with his, she snuggled her cheek against his shoulder (though she had to bend down a bit as he was shorter). “I made you a super special bento for lunch. I put it in my locker. Let’s go and eat it together,” she gushed.

Deflated, Ranma let his arms go limp. “I’m not done with you. Are we gonna fight or what?” he called with frustration as they disappeared back into the school.

“Doesn’t look like it,” answered Akane. “Might as well have lunch and figure it out later.” She and Yuka were already eating onigiri. Yuka shrugged philosophically and stuck a straw into her juice box.

At Ranma’s sharp, probing look up and down Akane’s body, which included mental fingers tracing briefly along her Ki, Akane shivered, blushed a beguiling pink, and then gave Ranma a confused glare. _So cute,_ he thought privately. Still not noticing anything like a mark or loop, Ranma backed off, told himself that a cute blush did not mean she would allow him to rub his face back and forth against her stomach or rest his cheek on her thigh, and sent Akane an innocent look before turning away to scan the courtyard.

That girl must have just been winding him up after all. She probably just didn’t want to think that her boyfriend really had a thing for Akane. Jealousy did make girls do and say crazy things. That’s all it was. Probably. He’d keep an eye on things just in case though.

Next to them were a few other students who’d followed Ranma down looking for a show. Most of them had given up and started eating their own lunches. His friend Hiroshi was sucking on a juice box. “I wonder what Gosunkugi does to inspire devotion like _that_ from a girl who looks like that?” Hiroshi asked longingly.

“A girl who looks and acts psycho?” Akane asked disgustedly.

“She’s not psycho, she’d just confused!” defended Daisuke. “We need to save her from Gosunkugi’s bad influence. I am willing to comfort her in these arms,” he declared with an expansive hand gesture. Then he hesitated, glanced up at the second floor where she’d sliced through a wall, and added with a nervous laugh, “After Ranma makes sure she’s not homicidal anymore, of course.”

Ranma stole an onigiri from Daisuke’s bento during his speech and, after swallowing, said, “There’s definitely something strange about her. We should look into it before someone really does get hurt.”

_Besides,_ Ranma thought, _you need to make sure she doesn’t know what she’s talking about with Akane. It’ll also be a good distraction from the cat fist and your problems. Plus, new opponent to fight, even if she is a girl. Could be fun!_

“Well,” said Akane, “she’s sure to attack you again later. They always do. You might as well eat lunch while you can.”

Shrugging away his tension, Ranma agreed to worry about it later. As he thought about stealing another onigiri from Daisuke’s bento, the boy seemed to sense his thoughts and pulled his lunch to his chest protectively, glaring. Ranma scanned the quad for any other free food. Ever since Ukyo had stopped going to school to concentrate on her business, free lunches had been a lot scarcer.

Then he heard Akane’s friend Yuka hiss, “Just take the pill!”

Quickly turning back, Ranma watched with confusion as Akane averted her eyes. “I’m fine,” Akane mumbled.

Yuka sighed in exasperation. “If they were just normal cramps, you wouldn’t keep flinching and touching your side like that. I’m sick of watching you suffer. Just take it!”

Ranma wasn’t sure what they were talking about, but he hadn’t seen much of Akane in the last few days. “What’s wrong, Akane?” he asked with narrowed eyes. _Had that crazy girl managed to hurt her after all?_ His vision sharpened and colors became strangely flat, but Ranma barely noticed beneath the urge to either chase after that girl and rip out her throat with his teeth, or pull Akane close and lick her until she felt better.

“Nothing’s wrong,” Akane denied belligerently.

“Ha!” Yuka replied, “Then why do you keep favoring your side! I saw you massaging it just a second ago. Remember when you berated me last month to stop constantly moaning and just take something? When you said you didn’t want to hear it anymore? Well, it’s payback time.”

Akane glared at Yuka. Then she looked at Ranma from the corner of her eye, twitched, and turned red. “Fine! I’ll take the stupid pill, you harpy. And I was grabbing my side because I have bad _cramps_ , Ranma.” Looking away from his eyes, Akane finished, “There’s no other reason why my side would be hurting, so leave me alone.”

Obviously it wasn’t what he thought, so Ranma relaxed and let his vision return to normal. But… “What kind of cramps? Did ya eat your own cooking again? You know that stuff is poisonous, right?”

Akane’s fist clenched and swung up towards his face, freezing six inches from his cheek before slowly lowering back to her side with what looked like a supreme amount of effort. He was extremely impressed by her self-control. Usually he was guaranteed a blast-off when he mentioned her cooking, though he’d only been speaking the honest truth, not trying to hurt her feelings.

“You are such a jerk, Ranma,” Yuka said with rolled eyes as she opened a piece of silver foil and placed a pill into Akane’s hand. “A woman having cramps? You’re a girl sometimes, get a clue and have a little sympathy.”

 “I’m not a girl, I’m a guy,” Ranma said in knee-jerk response. Then he blinked, scratched his head, and asked, “And what do cramps have to do with being a girl?”

Both Akane and Yuka turned to look at him with incredulity. “You do know what a period is, right Ranma?” Akane asked carefully.

“Of course I do,” Ranma scoffed. “Once a month girls use these pad things and drink blue water while doing stuff like horseback riding and mountain climbing and roller-skating. I’ve seen the ads.”

Akane, Yuka, Hiroshi, and Daisuke all stared at him in silence for a moment. Then Yuka snorted, met Akane’s eyes, and they both started giggling. A second later Hiroshi and Daisuke fell down onto the ground and rolled around laughing hysterically.

“It wasn’t that funny, guys,” Ranma huffed.

Akane squeaked out, “horseback riding!” and everyone started cackling even louder.

“Seriously, you’re being jerks,” Ranma gritted out. “What did I say?”

Everyone had almost calmed down when Yuka gasped, “blue water,” and then they all started hooting all over again. Offended, Ranma stalked off to get his own lunch from his locker and sulk. Then maybe he’d look into Gosunkugi’s new girlfriend, since everyone else was too busy acting stupid to see that she was still a problem.

He wasn’t able to find the couple before the bell rang for the next period. However, he did hear two girls talking about another student ending up in the nurse’s office with all her energy drained, even though Ms. Hinako was seen just minutes later still a child. However he had to wait until after school to look into it. He fidgeted though his classes until the final bell rang.

At first he tried to find Gosunkugi, but had no luck. In the hall he finally asked a classmate if they knew where to find him, but the boy said that he’d left after lunch and skipped the rest of the day. Frustrated but not defeated, Ranma went to his locker to stash his books.

Then he detoured over to the nurse’s office to ask a few questions about the drained student. Before going inside, he stopped by the bathroom to splash himself with cold water.  People always talked more to girls than to guys.

Now a she, Ranko walked as demurely as possible into the nurse’s office. “Excuse me,” Ranko said in a cutesy voice. “I heard another female student was sick today and wanted to check on her.” Putting her hands to her cheeks she gasped, “I was so worried.”

“Oh she’s fine, don’t you worry any dear,” the nurse replied unhelpfully. “Ranko Saotome, isn’t it?”

“Yes, I was just wondering-,” Ranko said hesitantly, calling on all her acting talent, but before she could say anything else the nurse interrupted her.

“Now don’t feel bad,” the nurse said as she put an arm around Ranko’s shoulders and steered her back behind the privacy curtain. “You aren’t the only late bloomer I’ve ever seen. Your friend stopped by about something else earlier, and mentioned it to me. Let’s just have a little chat, shall we?” Then the nurse closed the curtain.

Fifteen minutes later, a pale and shaken Ranko Saotome stumbled out from the nurse’s office hastily. “No, no, no more diagrams! That’s enough information for now, thanks,” she gasped. “I don’t need any free samples.”

Then the redhead ran into the men’s restroom, cranked on the hot water, and stuck her head under the spout. Red hair turned black, breasts shrunk into pectoral muscles, and Ranma’s limbs got longer. Bracing himself on the sink, Ranma chanted, “I’m a guy, I’m a guy, I’m a guy.”

“You had breasts a minute ago,” said the guy peeing at the urinal. “Nice ones.”

“Shut it or I’ll make ya,” Ranma threatened fiercely without looking away from his reflection in the mirror. A hurried zip, whimper, and a few seconds later the boy scuttled out the door. The bathroom was now empty.

The horrors of Ranma’s curse were increasing. To think that he might actually bleed... down there. What if he got stuck as a girl again? How long did he need to be in girl form for it to happen? It hadn’t yet, but it _could_.

Somehow Ranma had remained ignorant of this until now. His pops had never mentioned it, and they’d usually trained with men. The few women he’d interacted with over the years had never explained it to him either. Somehow he hadn’t noticed, had misunderstood, or had dismissed any clues about it as irrelevant. He wished he was still ignorant.

How did girls deal with it? How did Akane? He’d never even noticed her freakin’ _bleeding_ once a month! It was crazy! His respect for women increased exponentially. So did his disgust at ever being one.

But still. Women. You had to give them props.

Shaking the last of the water droplets from his hair, Ranma decided to go looking for Ryoga, or Mousse if Ryoga was lost far away somewhere, to see if they wanted to spar. Ranma needed to do something manly right now, like fighting, grunting, and bleeding from getting hit too hard and _for no other reason_ , and maybe a bit of spitting and crotch scratching too.

But first, he was going to go act like a man and pee standing up.

* * *

 

During dinner, Akane noticed that Ranma was sporting a new cut on his left cheek. She was concerned, but if she asked he’d know she cared, and then her family would make a big deal about it, and she’d get embarrassed and mad and… and she was being stupid. _Stop your bad habits,_ she scolded herself.

Akane had snuck into Kasumi’s room yesterday and borrowed one of her books on how to trust your strengths and minimize your fears. The first chapter was on emotional honesty and questioning instinctive reactions. Akane had shamefully recognized herself in a lot of the negative habits the book described.

“Ranma, what happened,” she asked, forcing herself to be brave and openly show that she was worried that Gosunkugi’s crazy girlfriend had caught up to him again.

“What, this?” he asked, touching his cheek. “Oh, I got Ryoga and Mousse to meet me after school for a spar. It was fun, though Mousse needs to learn to hit harder. Still, it was all very manly,” he finished nonsensically.

_What a jerk!_ Here she’d been trying to be all emotionally honest, and her worry was for nothing. He’d gotten hurt fighting both of those guys at once even though he knew how dangerous they were. It was taking a lot of self-control to keep from punching him in the side. “Stupid,” she scolded, “what if you’d gotten hurt and then been cornered by that psycho girl from school?”

Ranma huffed in annoyance. “I didn’t get hurt and I _wouldn’t_ because I’m a better fighter than they are. Besides, if that girl shows up I’d defeat her too. I’m a martial artist, remember? Don’t worry so much, Akane.”

Scowling, Akane brought her bowl up and stuffed a chunk of rice into her mouth to keep from saying something mean. Meaner than stupid, that is, because he was being an idiot. But part of keeping her temper and becoming more emotionally honest was trying not to argue with him as much.

You would think he’d appreciate her efforts to protect him enough to keep himself uninjured for the few hours they were apart. _Was that so much to ask?_ Or at least let her know he was going to be fighting so she could watch his back just in case. Not that she was or would have been really worried. But she had proven that she took his safety seriously, and she didn’t want him undoing her save from this afternoon.

After all, yanking him out of the way of that brutal bow attack had given Akane a deep throbbing ache in her side. She had been afraid that she’d torn her stitches. They hadn’t, but there were a few spots of blood on the bandage when she’d checked later. It had made her slower to get outside than usual, so by the time she got there the talking was pretty much over and the other girl had disappeared.

Luckily Yuka had assumed Akane was having menstrual cramps, and everyone had accepted the explanation. Though it was embarrassing to have everyone think she was on her period. _Ranma’s explanation had been hilarious,_ Akane remembered with a private giggle.

Akane had stopped by the school nurse later that day to ask the nurse’s advice about getting certified in first aid. Akane thought being certified would be a good selling point for the dojo and her classes. She felt pretty confident that she already knew what to do to treat an injury, considering how many injuries she’d had or treated in her time, but official certification was important to some people. Nabiki kept reminding Akane of that, trying to push her in a more business-minded direction. 

While at the nurse’s office, Akane had tried to pick Ranma up a pamphlet on having a period, since he obviously needed to know about it since he did turn into a girl occasionally. Talking about it with him seemed too embarrassing (even if that was cowardly). Unfortunately, the nurse didn’t have any pamphlets on that topic, since most girls had started years before high school.

Later that night, Akane gathered up her gumption and approached Ranma while they were working on their homework. “Hey Ranma?”

“Yeah, whaddaya want?” he asked absently, flipping a page and running his finger down a row of figures.

Akane took a deep breath and decided to come at it from a round-about approach. “Well, I went to talk to the school nurse today and…,” she paused, trying to think of how to word what she wanted to say. But before she could come up with something clever, Ranma interrupted her.

“That was you who told her about the girl thing? Who else did you tell?!” Ranma demanded with a fierce blush and scowl.

“No one,” Akane defended with annoyance. “I had to ask her something about a certificate and wanted to also see if she had a pamphlet or something. It came up then, that’s all,” she huffed. “I was trying to help you.”

“That’s all,” Ranma shouted, “do ya know what I had to listen to?!” Then he glanced around for listeners, leaned forward, and whispered, “A lecture on being a girl and _bleeding_! It was _horrible_!”

Sitting back, Akane sighed in relief. _What luck! Now I don’t have to explain it._ “Well,” she placated, “you needed to know, since most girls go through it every month, and you are often a girl. It was either her or me… or maybe one of my sisters,” she threatened.

Ranma grimaced in distaste at the mention of either Kasumi or Nabiki trying to explain having a period. It looked like just imagining it made him nauseous and twitchy. Akane suppressed a laugh at his expense. He probably wouldn’t buy that she was laughing with him and not at him.

“Well, if you have any questions, you can ask me,” she offered generously, secure in the knowledge that he probably never would. “Otherwise, we don’t ever have to talk about it again.”

“Whatever,” Ranma grumbled, turning back to his textbook. Though Akane noticed that it took several minutes for the tips of his ears to stop being red.

* * *

 

That night, Ranma expected to have nightmares about being stuck as a girl, getting a period, and maybe drowning in blue water. To his very pleasant surprise, instead he had another nice dream about snuggling up to Akane (though he was acting like a cat at the time again, but whatever.) She had let him doze up against her side while she absently carded her fingers through his hair. Ranma sleepily decided that Akane had the best fingers ever.

Of course, Friday morning proved to once again be troublesome.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For those wondering, this was not the chapter on sex Ed alluded to in the story description. It is coming though! During editing, I had to admit that Ranma’s explanation of a period was influenced by the “Bodyform: The Truth” video facebook response to a man questioning their presentation of period facts. If you haven’t seen it, you should check it out. Then let me know what you think!
> 
> Also, for all those who mention it, I tend to do a lot of introspection, I know I know, but I’m trying to include more dialog and action too. One of my original goals with this story was to improve my writing so I’m not just doing introspection all the time. Though I do really like introspection, and always will. I do appreciate your constructive criticism though. I also had a reviewer call me on jumping the shark with Ranma’s dialog in the chapter where he wakes Akane up (you know who you are).  After thinking about it for a while, I have to concede with a squirm of embarrassment that my writing did get away from me a bit. So I’ll go back and edit it at some point, and then let everyone know. For now though, I’m trying to focus on creating new stuff.
> 
> Thanks again for your comments and encouragement!


	22. Chipmunks and threats

_Of course, Friday morning proved to once again be troublesome._

Akane was in a foul mood about something, though she wouldn’t say what, and it made breakfast a little bit tense. He did notice her touching her side at one point and wincing, which he realized belatedly that she’d been doing for a few days. He opened his mouth at one point to ask about it before he remembered that she was on her period, with cramps and _vaginal_ _bleeding_ , and then his mind collapsed into protective _lalalalalala not thinking about it!_  

However, even though he’d suppressed any thoughts about _why_ Akane might be unhappy, he still didn’t like seeing her look that way. After his dream last night, Ranma was having trouble suppressing the urge to wrap his arms around Akane and just snuggle his face into the curve of her neck until she relaxed her stiff, unhappy posture and let him support her against his chest. Not looking directly at her helped, but he still found himself unconsciously leaning closer when she talked, or inching nearer to her cushion only to barely pull back at the last second when hopefully no one was looking.

It was ridiculous.

He might have to start avoiding Akane for a little while. Maybe a little distance would help him regain his control. Stupid kidnapping and stupid cat fist and stupid Okinawa messing somehow with his control. This was going to suck.

Then, before Ranma even got inside the school, Ranma was accosted by a group of geeks from the Dungeons and Dragons club. He probably wouldn’t recognize them except for the t-shirts most of them wore under their open uniform jackets with giant 20-sided dice, dragons, monsters, and bad puns about bonuses.

“Ranma Saotome, this is all your fault!” the surprisingly fit guy in front accused. Ranma recognized him from the baseball and soccer teams, and had a few classes with the guy. He wouldn’t have pegged him as being a part of this crowd.

Sighing, Ranma asked, “Whadda ya mean?  What did I do now?”

Jun, that was his name Ranma finally remembered, continued, “If you hadn’t monopolized the attentions of Akane Tendo, Gosunkugi never would have gotten so crazy with his magic attempts!"

“Yeah,” backed up the scrawny kid behind Jun. “He barely comes to play D & D with us anymore, and we’ll never beat this monster without him!” Reading Ranma’s lack of recognition, the kid finished with, “I’m Ren, a level 8 cleric.”

“Um,” Ranma said, “I’m not sure how that’s relevant to whatever you’re here to yell at me about, but class starts in a few minutes so if you could just get to the point? My day is already a bit crappy, and I don’t want to be holding buckets in the hall this morning.”

Jun was pushed up front again, clearly the leader of the club with his, "DMs rule" t-shirt, which made no sense to Ranma, any more than Yuuji’s shirt proclaiming, "Jesus saves, all others take 4d6 damage." Tugging his jacket straight, Jun explained, “Look, it’s like this Saotome. Gosunkugi borrowed Yuuji’s Spell Compendium and our mascot Trixie, and somehow managed to cast a spell that got him a girlfriend.”

“And he refuses to share, the selfish jerk,” yelled someone in the back.

Ren sighed loud and dramatically, and then said, “I told you he couldn’t share because we only had one Trixie. Plus, she isn’t a normal girlfriend. She’s possessed by an evil demon that he accidentally raised and then lost control of! She meets all of the criteria in the spell compendium.”

“Are you serious?” Ranma asked, looking around at them incredulously.

“I wouldn’t lie about something like a demon,” Ren defended hotly. “I’m a level 8 cleric!”

“Hey, I’m not saying you’re a liar, I’m just shocked Gosunkugi got a spell to work for real, is all.” Ranma replied.

“Oh, well,” Ren scratched his head sheepishly, “we were rather surprised at that too.”

Just then the five minute warning bell rang for first period. “Look,” Jun said, “we’ll spy on him throughout the day and get you some more information, but we’re going to need some real muscle to trap this girl and you’re it. We don’t expect much in the way of brains, but I’m used to working with barbarian classes so don’t worry about it.”

“Hey, watch it!” Ranma growled. He wasn’t a barbarian, whatever that meant to them. In fact, he was quite good at strategy, thank you very much, even if his grades weren’t the greatest. “But fine, you guys collect the information and I’ll try to keep an eye out for this girl. I’m not touching her until we make sure she really is possessed by a demon, though she was acting creepy yesterday too. But we need more evidence. Are there just the five of you?”

“Usually we have six not counting Gosunkugi,” Jun explained, “but Tetsu already has a girlfriend, so he’s not as bitter as the rest of us. We’ll succeed though, because we’re used to working together on a quest, right guys?”

“Right!” they all shouted back.

After that, everyone scattered to their various classes and spying duties. By lunch, the reports were in. Gosunkugi’s new girlfriend was definitely possessed by an evil demon. She wasn’t picky about who she drained of energy, either.

“Do we know what kind of demon,” Ranma asked Jun, “or how to get rid of her?”

Jun looked over his party before focusing on Ren, “You’re our cleric. What are your thoughts, Tanutorucalus the Wise?”

“Who?” Ranma asked, but was ignored.

“Well,” Ren said, adjusting imaginary glasses, “at first I thought a succubus, except that unfortunately she’s draining people without using any sex, not even a kiss or any groping. I caught her with a first year girl outside the bathroom and thought I’d get a show, but no luck.”

“Don’t be a pervert,” Yuuji scolded as he slapped Ren on the back of the head.

Leaning out of reach, Ren added, “But it was Mayuri, that girl who suddenly matured and hasn’t bought any new shirts yet. You know, the one with the straining buttons.”

“Ohhhh,” half the group sighed and started to drool.

“Can you blame me for hoping for some girl on girl action?” Ren finished, sending the other half into fantasy land.

Ranma would never admit it to anyone, but he may have replayed the memory of walking in on Akane and Shampoo in the bath together a few times in his mind. And he may have imagined a slightly different, dare he even say _friendlier_ , ending to the affair after he’d come in. Not that Shampoo or anyone else was allowed to touch Akane, but Shampoo was hot (even if rather annoyingly persistent and fake as well), and the two of them had made a _very_ pretty picture. Perhaps he’d occasionally entertained the idea of being sandwiched between those two gorgeous girls. He was a guy, after all.

But even in his imaginings, heated sighs almost always turned to heated blows as imaginary Akane would get angry at the situation, or even worse, turn those big, liquid eyes on him and make him feel like scum for forcing her to be in such a sordid fantasy. It was frustrating that even imaginary Akane wouldn’t let him fully enjoy himself. Which was extremely hypocritical of him, because if he had even an inkling that Akane was imagining him and another guy both touching her, he’d go ballistic and disembowel the fellow.

Or at least, he’d want to. He wouldn’t actually do it. Probably.

Clearing his throat, Ranma forced them to get back on track. “So what kind of demon do you think it is then?” he asked.

Snorting up from his sordid daydream, Ren wiped the drool from his chin and continued. “Well, I’m not completely sure, but based on a few books I checked out from the library, I think it is a chipmunk demon.”

Jun cleared his throat. “Um, excuse me, did you say chipmunk demon? That’s what’s being running around draining students? That’s what attacked Ranma? A chipmunk?”

“A chipmunk demon,” Ren reiterated as everyone groaned or shook their heads in disbelief. “I’m serious. They can be very formidable when they possess someone, and are known to be jealous. They drain other humans to keep a strong grip on the person they are possessing, and like to hoard trinkets like hair ribbons, which this girl is obviously obsessed with considering how she whips those things around.”

“But a _chipmunk_ demon?” Ranma said. It just didn’t sound very fierce.

“Hey, I believe him,” Yuuji said. “Just think about those girls on Chip and Dale or Alvin and the Chipmunks, they could be super scary.” When everyone sent him blank, confused looks, he blushed and mumbled, “American cartoons, forget about it.”

 _Must be some horror/suspense show from America_ , Ranma assumed. “Well,” he began slowly, “what else do we know about how to get rid of… chipmunk demons.”

“Well,” Ren said, “they are very sociable with other small animal demons, like weasel and rat demons, so they often aren’t found alone, and if they are alone, they quickly recruit allies. We better contain this girl fast before we have more than one problem.”

“Great,” Ranma muttered. A cold tendril slid down his spine as he remembered the words that girl had said about Akane. Could there be another demon out there targeting Akane without him knowing? Well, if there was, Ranma would protect Akane. At any cost.

“We’re going to need the original spell caster to help banish her. Otherwise, it’ll take me several weeks to get through this book to figure out the right banishment spell. I’ve got an algebra test and a history report next week that take precedence.

“Over a demon?” Yuuji said disapprovingly.

“Hey,” Ren replied, “if my grades slip, my mom won’t let us hold D&D nights at my house anymore.”

Jun hastily intervened, “Let him focus on his schoolwork. The rest of us can work on getting Gosu to admit his girlfriend is possessed.”

The rest of the day was extremely frustrating. Gosunkugi wouldn’t admit that his new girlfriend was possessed until it was pointed out to him four times, three students were found drained and unconscious, she’d almost killed Ranma twice, and one school statue got beheaded by her bows. In the end, Akane had thrown up her hands, screeched, “This is ridiculous!” and berated Ranma into telling her the full story of what was going on.

“So you need to get Gosunkugi away from his girlfriend so you can confront him and figure out what spell he used, and then you can get this girl unpossessed. Right?” she asked.

“Basically,” Ranma admitted. “But I’m working on a backup plan.”

“Of course you are,” she said, rolling her eyes. “So she’s possessed by a chipmunk demon, of all things, and drains people of energy, hoards trinkets, and will recruit other demons to her. Great, just another normal day in Nerima, right?” Akane smiled at him, and Ranma couldn’t help but shrug and smile back.

Akane huffed a laugh, and then got a thoughtful look in her eye as she focused on the announcement board over Ranma’s shoulder. “I have an idea, but we’ll need to split up.”

Before Ranma could voice his protest, Akane put her hand over his mouth. “Look, I’ll get them separated and get Gosunkugi to go the library alone,” she boasted. Her touch had both startled and thrilled Ranma, and it took a second to process what she said after her calloused fingers dropped from his suddenly over-sensitive lips. “But after that, you’re on your own except for emergencies. I’m swamped with meetings this afternoon, and they’ll kill me if I skip out.”

“How are you going to- wait, you’re not coming with m…” Ranma cut himself off before he could actually whine that Akane wasn’t going to come along. If she’d prefer to do some other committee thing instead of help him out, he’d be fine. He didn’t need her help. He wasn’t hurt, just disappointed. “I mean, sure, that’s fine,” Ranma muttered. He wasn’t disappointed, he was fine. Just because Akane almost always came along didn’t mean she had to always come along. It was fine. Sure, sure it was. No problem. Maybe he felt a little disoriented as he wandered down to the library by himself, but whatever. It was fine.

_(And he’d keep telling himself that until that strange uncomfortable feeling went away.)_

* * *

 

Akane felt horrible. She hadn’t missed the shock and disappointment in Ranma’s eyes when she’d refused to see this to the end. Nor had she missed the hangdog look he’d tried to hide as he’d plodded off to the library without the usual spring in his step.

Although she wanted to help, Akane feared that with her side injured the way it was, she’d just get in the way. What if she wasn’t able to move fast enough, and Ranma did something stupidly brave to save her that ended up with him getting hurt? She could barely stand the thought.

This way, she’d be able to help and if she screwed up, no one would be around to get hurt but herself. Luckily Ranma had been too distracted by her refusal to help that he hadn’t thought about how she’d probably be confronting the couple by herself. Of course, Akane was confident that she could handle things just fine. Akane’s body may be injured, but her mind worked just fine. The announcement board had given her a few ideas too.

It only took a few minutes to track the lovey-dovey couple down. The amount of “snookums” and “sweetie-pies” thrown around in the course of one minute was frankly disgusting. They also walked slower than an arthritic grandmother. She had to swallow down her nausea at their cuddling before she was able to paste on an innocent expression. As soon as the couple finally passed the particular poster on the wall she’d been waiting for, she spoke up.

“Excuse me,” she said in a hesitant voice, trying to project helpless and feminine.

Immediately Gosunkugi turned around and blushed. “A-A-Akane!” He exclaimed. “What can I do for you? Do you need help with something?”

As soon as he had turned around and seen Akane, he had dropped his girlfriend’s arm and stepped forward. If Akane didn’t know that the girl was really possessed, she’d feel awful. Boys really were pigs. As it was, she still had to swallow down the urge to let him know how his actions disgusted her.

“I think I saw your camera in the library, and some girls were talking about looking through it to see if they could figure out who it belonged to based on the pictures, but you probably have private stuff on there, so…” she trailed off. More likely he had perverted and invasive stuff on there, since she knew for a fact that he’d taken personal pictures of her in the past without her permission, until both she and Ranma had threatened him (though she’s not sure what Ranma said, just that it made the guy tremble and sweat whenever Ranma glared at him). Whatever the case, Akane hoped that he’d be in a rush to hide those photos to avoid retribution from other people in the school.

“Oh, thank you, yes,” he stammered with a shifty-eyed look. “I’ll just go and get that right now. Unless you need me to-,” he offered and leaned towards Akane.

Stepping back out of his reach just in case, she quickly said, “No, no I’m fine. I don’t need anything. I just don’t want your camera to get stolen. You better run and get it.” When he didn’t start moving fast enough for her liking, Akane dropped her cutesy act and ordered, “Now.”

Smiling dopily, he stumbled into a jog and disappeared around the corner.

Akane blew out a breath in relief, only to be confronted by the narrowly assessing look on his girlfriend’s face. _I need to find out this girl’s name,_ Akane reminded herself. Yet something stopped her tongue from asking. There was something… dangerous about this girl, and it put Akane on guard.

“So we meet at last, Akane Tendo” she drawled as she looked Akane up and down. Her nose crinkled in disgust and her lip curled during the perusal, igniting Akane’s pride.

“I’m sorry,” Akane replied sweetly, ignoring the frantic voice telling her to shut up and walk quickly away. “I didn’t know you were so anxious to meet me, since no one seems to ever talk about you. Who are you again?”

Storms gathered in the other girl’s eyes, “No one mentions me, do they?! Well, I…” she paused, took a deep breath, and licked her blood red lips. Then she smirked cruelly, a smile that had no business being on the face of an innocent teenaged girl. It was practically obscene with evil.

“Lately, I’ll admit, I have been talking to someone who loves to talk about _you_ , Akane. I can call you Akane, can’t I, since we’re going to be such good friends?” she cooed. “After all, my friend is very invested in you. He’s quite wrapped up in your life, in fact, and tells me that you look just ravishing in _pearls_.” She grinned in satisfaction as Akane flinched and stumbled back a step. “He’s developed a consuming passion for you, says you’re so cute he could just _eat_ you up.”

“W-w-what are you talking about,” Akane forced out through practically numb lips.

“Tsk, tsk, don’t tell me you’ve forgotten it already.” She stalked forward, close enough to Akane to whisper in her ear, “He talks of you so fondly. After all, you did give birth to his string of pearls, dear Akane, and soon you’ll give to birth to his-,” she stopped abruptly, stepped back, smiled cruelly, and then tossed her hair and trailing bows over each shoulder nonchalantly.

“To his what?” Akane whispered, unable to summon the force for a louder question. Even worse than the horrible memories her words stirred up was the compelling feeling that every terrifying thing this girl was saying was true, even though Akane had no idea what she meant or how bleeding on a dirty string had come to be associated with the terrifying word _birth_. Not to mention that she had no idea who this “he” was she spoke of so casually.

Could it be the demon that had tried to dig into her ki? But hadn’t Sachi cut him off, dug him out? Wasn’t Akane supposed to be mostly safe now and hard to find?

But the other girl merely smirked again. “No no, we probably shouldn’t speak of such things in public, Akane. After all, if your dear Ranma found out you’d cheated on him and were no longer pure, well, I think we can both imagine the eruption to follow. He’s going to be so angry with you, and after that, he might even go crazy enough to start destroying things like that boy with the bandana who’s always lost.”

She laughed at her own words and twirled on her feet. “That sounds like fun, maybe we should tell him after all. He has so much power and rage, I bet he could level all of Nerima. Of course, there’s always the small chance he might actually forgive you for being so stupid, though he’d certainly never forget it. What do you think, Akane? Should I tell him for you? After all, I only want to help you out, Akane.”

Akane thought that if this girl didn’t stop using her name so familiarly and so often, Akane was going to reel back and punch her in the face several times. Either way, Akane had to get mad and attack, because if she didn’t get mad right now, she was going to throw up from fear. “I think you don’t know what you are talking about. I think you don’t have a name, not because you haven’t introduced yourself to anyone, but because you are insignificant. I think that, even if there is some demon associated with me, he wouldn’t give you the time of day because _you are worth nothing_.”

Rage transformed that pretty face into sharp planes of inhuman ugliness. Akane felt satisfaction that her words had hit a sore spot. But those razor sharp bows were quivering and a dark glow gathered around the other girl’s fingers. Her chances of escaping unscathed, physically at least, were rapidly dropping (mentally she was already bleeding out all over the floor).

Akane had to put the other half of her plan into action now, before she got killed. Hopefully, it would work, and no one else would get hurt in the process. Reaching up, Akane ripped the poster off the wall and tossed it over the other girl’s head. Then she turned and ran down the hallway as fast as she could go.

When she didn’t hear any footsteps following, or feel any razor-sharp bows cutting into the flesh of her back, Akane let herself stop. It was just her alone in the hallway. Sneaking up a staircase to the second floor, she concealed herself inside a dark classroom with a clear vantage point of a door down the hall. An identical poster to the one Akane had thrown was taped to it. The poster proclaimed in curling turquoise poster paint: Official Meeting of the Ribbon and Bow club! We welcome fashionistas, hobbyists, martial arts gymnasts, and martial arts present wrappers (no archers, please).

An unpleasant grin twisted Akane’s lips as she watched the demon possessed girl walk up to the door, check the poster, and then walk in. It seems Ranma’s information about her addiction to trinkets like ribbons and bows had been accurate. It also seemed like no one had informed the girl of the trap on the door or of today's collaborative project with St. Hebereke’s, which meant a visit from the psychotically competitive Kodachi Kuno.

Within seconds, a cloud of pink vapor enveloped the doorway where the girl had entered and the sound of hundreds of slithering ribbons echoed down to Akane’s hiding place. Cautiously she waited for the vapor to clear, then, holding her sleeve over her nose and mouth, Akane ventured out into the hallway to get a better look. Akane was praying that no innocent bystanders in the club had gotten hurt trying to trap and subdue the girl she had driven into the Ribbon and Bow club’s trap.

Before she could reach the room, Kodachi Kuno stomped out into the hallway and looked around. “Akane Tendo,” she called regally. “You don’t look busy. Dispose of this for us, would you?” And with that, she yanked on the ribbon Akane had overlooked in her hand. A limp body, wrapped from ankle to forehead in ribbon, slid out into the hall. Without another word, Kodachi turned on her heel and slammed the door, leaving Akane and the unconscious girl alone in the hallway.

Akane had to resist the urge to kick her in the face, since it was positioned so conveniently close to her foot. “Brawn isn’t everything,” she boasted to the quiet hallway with a tight grin. Then she grabbed a nearby book cart from a classroom and awkwardly flopped the girl up onto it. Akane wasn’t very gentle.

However, maybe she should have been more careful for her own sake. The frantic run and the careless slinging of her opponent’s body had made Akane’s side ache all over again. Allowing herself a single grunt of effort, Akane pushed her load around the corner and made her way down to the library. At the double doors, she looked through the windows and saw Ranma leaning against a table with his arms crossed. He was staring at a group of boys surrounding a seated and depressed looking Gosunkugi. _Good, their talking-to must have worked._

* * *

 

When Gosunkugi hurried into the library by himself, the entire D&D club, including the until-then errant Tetsu, grabbed him, forced him into a chair, and beat him down with facts and figures. They even rolled some dice a few times, which Ranma didn’t understand, but which nevertheless seemed to somehow help convince Gosunkugi that his supposed girlfriend was crazy. Finally he hung his head and admitted that it might be more than a coincidence that he’d been outside experimenting with a new spell, and that the first girl he ran into after that latched onto him and declared herself his girlfriend. He also admitted that a car had run over a chipmunk nearby where he’d been working his spells, and that the flattened carcass had maybe gotten up and walked away, but he’d been distracted by the girl on his arm and ignored it. Somehow. Ren also made Gosunkugi admit that he’d abducted and destroyed the club mascot Trixie during his spell, and made him promise to replace her.

Of course, once they had convinced Gosunkugi, they had to figure out how to get her to sit still long enough to perform the exorcism. Ranma kept volunteering to just go and grab her, or to distract her and keep her in a contained area while they chanted the spell nearby, but for some reason no one would listen to him. Instead, they just kept arguing with themselves on the best strategy for capturing a demon. Some of the things they suggested had to be pure fantasy. It was getting frustrating.

If Akane was here, she’d either have a good plan or let him do his plan. Plus, these guys all worshipped Akane. They’d listen to her if she was here, but instead she was off at her stupid committee meeting.

“But she’s a dangerous demon! How are we going to capture her for the ceremony without getting us all killed?” yelled the high-strung Tetsu.

Just then, the door banged open and Akane strolled through towing something behind her on a cart. “I have a delivery,” Akane called out with a saucy grin. Ranma smiled and shifted his stance to one of readiness. Everything was once again right in the world.

* * *

 

“But she’s a dangerous demon! How are we going to capture her for the ceremony without getting us all killed?” The loud voice of one of the boys sounded through the door.

 _That sounds like my cue,_ Akane thought _._ Banging the doors open with her hip, Akane towed the cart inside. “I have a delivery,” Akane called out as everyone looked up.

“What is that?” asked Jun from her English class, craning his head to see around her body. Then he choked and jumped up from his chair when he finally got a good look. “Is that really…?”

Ranma looked between the bundle and her face a couple of times before he started to laugh. “And here we’ve all been worrying for nothing. I guess you don’t need me after all. Akane somehow caught her for us.”

Akane could tell he was impressed. Heck, they all were staring at her with varying degrees of surprise and admiration. “You should know by now that I never need you, Ranma,” she teased.

However, at her words, Ranma’s smile suddenly dimmed and became almost plastic. “I know,” he snapped back.

 _I was teasing,_ she thought. _He wasn’t really hurt by that, was he?_

“But how did you do it?” asked Ren, distracting her from the expression on Ranma’s face.

Just then the clock began to chime the half-hour. “Crap,” Akane said as she checked the time. “I am completely late. I’ve gotta run. Good luck with the exorcism or whatever. Don’t worry about being gentle.” That said, she forced herself to turn and walk away to go to her meeting. She didn’t know what to say to Ranma to fix it right now anyways. Maybe she’d talk to him later after she figured it out.

For now, she’d done all she could, all she would let herself do, to help Ranma. For the rest of it, if things went wrong her body might falter at the wrong moment, and potentially get one of those other idiots hurt. Besides, as long as they didn’t screw up her hard work, the rest of this should be a piece of cake.

 


	23. Exorcisms and Office Work

The actual exorcism was taking forever to figure out, even with Gosunkugi’s cooperation. Bored out of his mind, Ranma was flipping through one of their D&D manuals looking at all of the cool fantasy pictures. One of them showed a hugely muscled guy with knee-high boots, furry underwear, and what sorta looked like a mullet, punching at a green-skinned creature. He had terrible form. He really needed to turn his body more into the punch and bend his knees. Then Ranma read the caption.

“Hey, Jun!” Ranma said, annoyed. “This barbarian guy looks nothing like me.”

Their DM didn’t look up from where he was pouring over a book with Ren. Instead he answered absently, “Huh? Oh, I just meant in intelligence and impulse control, not looks.” 

Ranma narrowed his eyes, “Really. And how intelligent is a barbarian supposed to be?”

Jun looked up, gulped loudly and then said, “Oh, they’re really smart and strong, of course, and very strategic and wise.” He avoided Ranma’s eyes as he finished, “B-but I’m sure you are more suited to another class now that I know you better.”

Ranma was about to go look up the stats on Barbarians to check the out their description, but before he could Yuujirou handed him something called The Monster Manual. “Here Ranma, take a look at this,” he said as he deftly slipped the other book out of Ranma’s hands. “It has lots of cool pictures and descriptions of bad guys.” Distracted, Ranma soon lost himself in all of the images of strange creatures.

Finally, Testu decided take pity on the unconscious demon girl and moved her from the cart. He stumbled a bit with her weight before dropping her on a table. Immediately, a small cloud of fine pink powder billowed up. He gasped in surprise, then his eyes rolled up in his head and his limp form slithered to the floor.

“Retreat!” screeched someone in panic as everyone dived behind the nearest chair or table to cower.

“Don’t hurt me, snookums,” whimpered Gosunkugi from where he hid under the table with his arms over his head.

From his position behind a chair, Ranma noticed that she wasn’t moving. However, that didn’t necessarily mean anything.  It could be a trick. At her feet lay Testu on the floor with a small trickle of drool escaping his mouth, but otherwise he seemed to be breathing normally.

“She can cast magic silently,” moaned Ren, “without even a wand or hand gestures. That’s not fair. You don’t let us do that,” he whined as he poked Jun in the side.

Jun swatted away his hand without looking away from the ribbon sheathed girl on the table. “That’s because you have to follow the rules of your character class,” he replied absently. “Hey Ranma, Akane never did tell us how she got this girl all tied up.”

“So?” replied Ranma, not sure where Jun was going with his comment.

“I was just thinking,” Jun whispered, “don’t the ribbons and the pink powder seem kind of familiar? Don’t they remind you of someone?”

“Huh,” Ranma said, “you’re right: Kodachi Kuno.”

Although still wary, when nothing else happened, Ranma darted out and pulled Testu to safety.  Then he carefully padded back over to the girl on the table, bent over, and examined her a little more carefully. Just in case, Ranma made sure to hold his breath. Then he stepped back a few feet, took a few breaths and strolled back to the cowering D&D club.

Cocking a hip against the table, Ranma confirmed, “Yep, good call Jun. She’s still asleep. Those ribbons are covered in pink powder, just like that crap Kodachi likes to use on people. It doesn’t tend to be permanent though, so Tetsu should be fine. We’ll just have to watch to make sure she doesn’t wake up too soon.”

Although Ranma was dying to question her further about Akane. He just wasn’t sure the ribbons would hold a demon. He considered taking the risk anyways, but every time she started to wake up, one of the club members would run over with his shirt tucked over his face and poof the ribbons until a fine pink powder would rise up and send the girl back to sleep. It was a bit frustrating, but probably wise.

It took until after dinner, and everyone’s stomachs were grumbling and tempers were short, for Gosunkugi to remember the correct order and wording of the spell. If done correctly, it should sever the tie allowing the demon possession. Supposedly. As Gosunkugi and his assistant, level 8 cleric Ren, chanted the spell to undo the binding of the possessed girl, the lights began flickering.

At that point, unfortunately, she woke up. But all she’d had to say for herself from behind her cocoon of ribbon were growls, swear words, and general but filthy threats. The chanting seemed to keep her contained, at least at first.

But then suddenly she rose up to hover in the air, ribbons burning away from her body in a rain of golden-black snakes of ash. “I’ll kill you all,” she shrieked, hair flicking around her body as if sentient and eyes becoming black pits of burning insanity. “I’m going to tear the flesh from your bones with my teeth and make a wall mural from your pelts!”

“And you, Saotome,” she turned to Ranma with an overwhelmingly vile look of hate, “I’m going to chain you up and let you live just long enough that the last sight you’ll ever see will be their offspring cracking your bones to suck on your marrow as he mounts her writhing body on the bloody floor next to your soon-to-be corpse!” she shrieked.

Ranma found himself moving forward, reason disintegrated, vision blind to any but the enemy of his mate, teeth bared in rage, hands glowing white and only getting brighter as he swing at the demon in a brutal killing move. It was designed to collapse her rib cage, shatter it into her lungs and heart, and tear her torso into two bloody chunks.  That he was gathering so much power that it might also collapse the school and surrounding neighborhood, killing or injuring everyone in his radius, wasn’t a priority to Ranma right now. Once she was dead, he would worry about containing it.

But before he could connect and destroy this threat to his mate, the shaky voices chanting in the background screamed out one last word and fell silent. A concussion wave of light and sound burst out from the demon’s body and knocked Ranma across the room and into the wall. Shaking the stars from his eyes, he rolled as soon as he touched the floor and rushed forward to attack his enemy again.

As his fist descended on the female body sprawled on the table, she lifted a head sporting short cropped brown hair and looked at him with frightened, moss-green eyes. “No,” she whimpered as she flinched away and fell off the table. “Please, don’t hurt me,” she cried as she scrambled backwards until she hit the wall.

Flipping the table out of the way as if it was a mere pebble in his path, Ranma advanced two more strides before he heard Akane roar at him to, “Stop!” Swaying from the effort, he paused. Blinked. Shook his head. Breathed out, and slowly, centimeter by centimeter, forced his hands to unclench and lower to his sides.

“Is she clean,” he growled to the room, silent except for the soft whimpering of the girl on the floor.

“Ye- ye- yes, the demon is gone. We did it,” Gosunkugi said.

“We did it!” shouted Yuujirou jubilantly. “No pelts for us!” The rest of the club members came out from hiding as they clapped and cheered.

Cracking his neck, Ranma forced himself to calm down and pasted a hopefully normal expression on his face. Then he looked around for Akane. But she wasn’t there.

Reaching out down the tie, he realized that she was at home in her room with a splitting headache. _Had he been drawing energy from her again?_ Confused and disgusted by himself for a multitude of reasons, he sent what energy he could back down the line to soothe her pain.

Whatever had just happened here scared him. Not the stupid demon, but how far that demon had made him loose control. Of course her threat towards Akane was horrific and made his vision threaten to white-out just recalling it, but Ranma had almost killed that innocent girl and potentially the entire D&D club along with half of the neighborhood.

Ranma had to get control of himself. A martial artist without discipline was worthless, dishonorable. Until he could trust himself again, he’d have to try and avoid anything or anyone that might lead him to do something regrettable.

Forcing himself to walk slowly over to the girl, who had been a mere demon host, he reminded himself, Ranma cleared his throat. “Sorry,” he said to her, “I thought you were still the demon.” It helped that she didn’t even look the same, with short hair instead of long and different colored eyes.

She looked down and swallowed, “Ok, but I’m not. My name is Toriko, Toriko Takeda, and I’m not a demon. At least, not anymore,” she finished with a green-eyed look of hate towards Gosunkugi that made him wilt into a ball on the floor.

Turning to Jun she said softly, “I’d like to go home now, please. My family must be worried.”

“Of course, I’ll make sure you get home safely,” Jun said, sweeping his coat over her shoulders chivalrously as he led her out of the library. After that, everyone chipped in to clean up. To celebrate their survival and victory, everyone was going out to dinner at the local Curry House. However Ranma was still too angry at himself to be good company.

“Have fun!” Ranma called out as he turned in the opposite direction and started to make his way home. As he passed a drink machine on the corner, he noticed that Akane’s favorite Grapefruit Gokuri was finally back in season again. Fishing around in his pockets, he found enough change to buy two of them. He stashed one in his backpack and screwed open the cap on the other.

Looking out at the moonlight reflecting off the waters of the canal, he slowly sipped the sweetly tart, pulpy drink and forced himself to admit the source of his loss of control: his confrontation with the cat fist. He needed to go back in there, to that dark and scary place in his mind. Ranma had to figure out what had happened in there that it could keep taking over like this, even when he wasn’t near a cat.

Draining the last drop of his juice, he tossed the can into the trash and jogged over to the nearest park. He didn’t want to do this at the dojo, just in case. Finding his favorite secluded patch of ground, he dropped his bag and flowed into a tai chi exercise to calm himself down. When he finished his warm-up, Ranma began moving through the martial arts geometry kata to create the mirrored dome of energy to examine the dark places inside of himself.

* * *

 

Akane tapped a pencil against her lip. She had decided to get her homework done early this weekend so she wouldn’t have to worry about it later. Plus, it was a good distraction from brooding on how Ranma was doing without her. She was focusing on her history right now, because it was one of the few classes she shared with Ranma and he always forgot his book and had to borrow hers.

As she tried to focus on a paragraph about a commander named Saitou Hajime at the end of the Bakumatsu, a sharp, throbbing headache swelled up out of nowhere.  Wincing in pain, Akane closed her eyes and let her head drop, trying to push past the strange feelings of weakness and slight nausea. She hated headaches.

Bringing her hand up to shade her eyes, she miserably wished that Ranma would magically appear to turn off the stabbing light, whisk her over to her bed, and help her take a couple of pain pills. _Why don’t you have this imaginary Ranma snuggle up behind you until you feel better while you’re at it?_ she asked herself sarcastically. _Maybe give you a massage while he’s there?_

It was a nice thought, but instead of imagining something so comforting, her mind jumped instead to the guys in the library trying to exorcise the demon from that girl. Her imaginary view of the room was jumpy, and she couldn’t really hear what was going on, but suddenly Ranma’s fists were glowing and heading straight for the girl, who didn’t look possessed anymore. She just looked confused and scared. Nevertheless, Ranma didn’t seem to be stopping his attack. Hadn’t he noticed? “Stop!” Akane yelled at him. As if he could hear her words, his fist froze a few inches from the girl’s cowering body.

A sudden knocking sound jolted her from the strange daydream. “Akane?” Kasumi called out. “Are you okay?”

Opening her eyes and putting a hand over her rapidly beating heart, Akane looked down at her half-finished worksheet and open textbook, and realized that it must have been her overactive imagination playing tricks on her. “Sorry, I was just doing homework and talking to myself,” she apologized.

Kasumi opened the door, stuck her head in, and looked her little sister over. “Are you sure you don’t need anything?”

“Thanks sis,” Akane smiled, “but it’s just been a long week. I didn’t mean to bother you.”

“No worries,” Kasumi said with a soft smile. “I remember wanting to yell at a textbook or two once upon a time myself. Let me know if you need anything. I’ll be watching TV in the living room after I finish the dishes, and you are welcome to join me.”

“Thanks,” Akane said again, having a hard time imagining her sweet sister yelling at anything, even a textbook. “Maybe I will.”

As Kasumi left and closed the door again, Akane realized that her headache had disappeared, just as quickly and mysteriously as it had started. Akane was just glad it was gone. She never used to be prone to headaches, but ever since China she’d been getting them regularly.

Trying not to worry about Ranma and how the exorcism was going, since he still wasn’t home, she returned to the distraction of her history worksheet and the life and times of the enigmatic Saitou Hajime.

* * *

 

As Ranma dropped down into his own mind, he forced himself to go straight onto the path leading to his memories of the cat fist, despite the urge to detour a bit. This time, however, there was no pus-lined path, no screeches and hisses, just a gentle slope covered in what felt like carpet. Occasionally he heard a distant purr, or the echo of claws clicking and scratching, but it never came closer.

Ranma had to climb up, around, and through a few obstacles that reminded him of scratching posts, and then finally he was in a meadow. A ring of tall, dark trees loomed around the small patch of grass, and low-hanging black clouds hid the position of the sun. The only movement came from a figure sitting on a low branch, swinging his legs.

“Are you me?” Ranma asked the doppelganger sitting in the tree.

“I’m part you and part something else,” the pigtailed man answered, rolling off the branch and dropping silently to the grass below. Standing up, he smiled, showing too many teeth, and sauntered closer. “What brings you down here? Are you finally going to let me claim our mate the way she needs to be claimed?”

At his question, a feeling of lust, possession, and anticipation rolled through Ranma’s body. “What?” Ranma asked. “No! We are not claiming Akane yet. She’s not ready.”

“Oh, I think she is,” purred the other Ranma.

“I said no, and I’m the one in charge of this body,” Ranma stated, “which is actually why I’m down here. Is it your fault that I keep swinging out of control and getting these… strange urges?”

“I’d call them natural urges, not strange,” he drawled. “But I suppose you could blame that on me, if you must. I just happen to see things a lot more clearly than you. You are all about being honorable and following all of these rules. I’m a cat, mostly. Things are a lot more black and white to me.”

“So, what, you want me to go around murdering people now?” Ranma asked incredulously. “Because that’ll land us in jail or dead pretty quick. Even if the police don’t have something to say about it, my mom sure will.”

“Whatever,” the doppelganger replied with a pout that made Ranma feel almost queasy. _He did not look like that stupid when he pouted, did he?_

“No, you need to stop it and just let me be in control,” Ranma argued.

“I usually do,” he groused back, “but now that I’m more awake I’m bored and I’m lonely. You hardly ever run into cats anymore. Plus, I miss Akane. If you aren’t going to claim her yet, you need to at least touch her more. She’s lonely too, you know.”

Ranma blushed. “I can’t just go up and randomly start touching Akane. She’d pound me into the ground.”

“Oh please,” the doppelganger rolled his eyes. “I touch her all the time and _she likes it_. She never punches me. Well, almost never, but nothing ventured nothing gained. Grow a spine!  Use some stealth and strategy! Be sneaky! Are you a martial artist or not?”

“Whatever,” Ranma huffed, but his mind was clicking over to different ways he could seem to accidentally invade Akane’s personal space without her flipping out over it. There were a few things he could do, especially when she was distracted. Shaking his head, he brought himself back to the conversation at hand.

“But what about how we almost killed that girl? You can’t do something like that to me again.” Ranma demanded.

His doppelganger’s tail (and when had he gotten that?) began to thrash back and forth in agitation. “She threatened our mate! She was going to help someone mount _our_ _mate_. Of course I was going to kill her. Threats must be killed.”

Ranma forced himself to unclench his teeth from the anger and fear brought up by the reminder of the threat to Akane. “What are you, Shampoo now? ‘Obstacles must be killed?’ We aren’t that crazy yet. You know that I’ll do whatever needs to be done to protect Akane, but killing is a last resort. It _has to be_ if we want to remain good enough _to be_ Akane’s mate one day.”

The other Ranma grumbled, but didn’t respond right away. It meant he was finally listening, hopefully. Now he just had to finish persuading him now that he was listening.

“You said that you are the cat part of us, and if that is true, then I’m the human part of us. We live in the human world, and Akane is a human woman. We have to be mostly human and act human if we are going to continue to survive, if we are going to belong. I-,” Ranma hesitated, because he didn’t want to admit the truth that had popped into his mind, but it was probably already too late. He might as well say it. “I know now that the cat, that you, are a part of me. I know that I can’t keep pushing you down and ignoring you. I am willing to try and let you out more, but you have to promise that you won’t make us kill someone or… pounce on Akane before she says she’s ready. As much as we’d like to,” he finished wryly.

“She smells ready,” the other Ranma muttered. “I won’t promise no pouncing, but I will let you be in charge when we mate her.” Then he quirked a smile at Ranma and sighed exaggeratedly. “I’ve absorbed too much of you over the years anyways. A normal cat spirit would have you mounting all of those girls panting after us, but you’ve made me just like you. I only want kittens with the one. Although a little resistance can be fun, I want her to let us mount her more than once. And I want her to keep greeting us with the good scratchies.”

“I’m both disturbed and disturbed that I’m not more disturbed by what you just said,” Ranma said slowly. “But okay, so we’re on the same page about Akane, mostly. But you gotta promise not to make me kill someone. I’m serious.”

“But if they threaten our,” he began mulishly, but Ranma interrupted.

“Then we threaten back, or beat them up, knock them unconscious, break their bones, or maim them. Only if all of that doesn’t work do we think about killing someone,” Ranma said.

The tail lashed back and forth again before the doppelganger sullenly responded, “Fine.” Then his face got very serious as he looked straight into Ranma’s eyes. “But what about other demons?”

“Well,” Ranma began slowly, “first we try to capture and exorcise the demon, if possible. Just like tonight. The demon host is usually innocent, and they don’t deserve to be hurt if we can avoid it. But,” Ranma paused and looked up at the cloudy sky for a moment. “But if that doesn’t work, and it is a threat, then we will eliminate it, whatever it takes.”

“Whatever it takes,” his feline double asked, stalking closer and circling around Ranma. “Do you promise?”

Ranma hesitated for a moment, but with all of his other stipulations, he didn’t see how it could hurt. “Yes, whatever it takes,” he promised.

Suddenly the doppelganger threw a companionable arm around Ranma’s shoulders and said, “I’ll try to be less pushy, but you gotta get me outta here more often, man, or I’ll start busting out more myself. And seriously, let us at least touch Akane a little more, huh?”

Ranma sent him a suspicious glare out of the corner of his eye, but before he could say anything else, his doppelganger pushed him, hard. Ranma sprawled forward painfully onto his face. When he sat up, spitting out grass, he found himself back in the park, his backpack sitting on the ground in front of him lit by moonlight.

When Ranma got back to the dojo, he let his Pops and Kasumi know he was home as he passed the living room. They were watching some drama on TV. It looked like it focused on Hockey players, with the lead being played by one of those singers Nabiki liked to hang pictures of in her room, Kimu-something.

“I left a plate of dinner for you on the kitchen counter,” Kasumi said without looking away from the drama on the screen.

“Thanks,” he said. “I’ll get it later.”

But first, he just had to check in on Akane. It was a compulsion. Then, despite the promises from his cat side, he had to stay away from her for a while until he was sure that he really did have himself under control.

Tapping very lightly on her door, as he didn’t want to wake her if she was sleeping, Ranma heard her voice call out a few seconds later, “Come in!”

“Hey Akane,” he replied as he opened the door and stepped inside. He wanted to just stop and drink in the sight of her sitting at her desk, twisted towards him with a welcoming smile on her face. Another, likely feline, part of him wanted to walk forward, bury his hand in the hair behind her neck, pull her up until she was clenching her fingernails into his shoulders to keep her balance, and kiss her hello. Obviously he couldn’t trust himself right now, so instead he looked down and unzipped his backpack.

“I got something for ya’,” he said, pulling out the Grapefruit Gokuri and tossing it to her. “Catch.”

Pleasure blossomed on Akane’s face as she saw what she’d caught. “I didn’t realize they’d released this flavor yet this year. Thanks Ranma.”

“Sure, no problem,” he said, leaning against the wall and tucking his hands behind his back before they could get up to some mischief, like tucking that loose strand of hair back behind the shell of her ear.

“Oh,” Akane said, biting her lip as she put her juice down on the desk. “How did the exorcism end up going?”

“Piece of cake,” Ranma answered blithely.  “It just took forever for Gosunkugi to remember what he’d done and how to undo it. But the demon’s gone now, and the girl got safely walked home by Jun, who wants to sweep in to be the new boyfriend, I think, but I find it a lot more likely that she’ll swear off all men, especially those from Furinkan, instead of falling for his knight-in-shining-armor routine.”

Akane sighed. “Well, I can’t really blame her. No one got hurt then?”

Ranma flashed on an image of his glowing fist speeding towards frightened green eyes before he was able to blink it away. “Nah, we all came out of it without a scratch. Testu got knocked out for a bit by leftover sleeping powder, but once he woke up he was fine.”

“Well,” she said, “thank goodness for that.” Then she hesitated a second before blurting out, “I’m sorry again that I couldn’t stay and help.”

“Nah, don’t worry about it. We handled it just fine and you did the hard part, getting her all trussed up for us like a present,” Ranma replied. “Speaking of which, how did you get Kodachi to agree to help us out? We finally recognized where the ribbon and sleeping powder came from.”

Akane laughed, “She didn’t know she was helping. I tricked the girl into going into the Ribbon and Bow club meeting without an invitation. They were doing some mandatory collaborative project with St. Hebereke’s, which of course meant Kodachi since ribbons and competition were involved. Those things always turn into brawls, so I just sent her in and let Kodachi and her minions do all the rest on their own. Then I collected the leftovers from the hallway and brought them to you. Presto!”

“Sneaky,” he said approvingly. “I like it.”

Akane blushed and grinned up at him. Before he knew what was happening, he’d taken two steps forward and was tucking that strand of hair back behind her ear. Her skin was soft, her hair cool and silky, and he wanted the intimate feel of it sliding strand by strand between his fingers to linger forever, except that Akane’s eyes had gotten huge and he could hear Mr. Tendo coming up the staircase and he wanted to do things that were all him and not his feline side but were still pretty animalistic and there wasn’t any time. Forcing himself to step back, Ranma closed his fingers into a fist to preserve the feel of her and whispered, “Night, ‘Kane,” before retreating to his room.

* * *

 

Before things could get awkward on Saturday, Happosai came to visit. He stayed until Sunday night, throwing the whole house into a frenzy, as usual, before he disappeared to parts unknown. Ranma was so busy he didn’t have time to even think about being awkward around Akane.

When Gosunkugi didn’t return to school on Monday, the D&D club cornered Ranma again at lunch and this time, begged Ranma to get Gosunkugi back. The family of the girl, Toriko Takeda, had kidnapped him and strung him up in their basement over the weekend. It was no less than Gosunkugi deserved, Ranma thought privately, but the D&D club put up a passionate argument. They needed Gosunkugi’s wizard to defeat the final boss in their ongoing D&D quest on Wednesday.

Although he’d never tell anyone, Ranma briefly felt tempted to join the club himself after Jun and Ren described with great enthusiasm and detail their last epic battle against evil. All of those fights and crazy monsters sounded pretty fun, the pictures in those books had been pretty cool, and these guys weren’t so bad once you got to know them. But if he had the choice of actual fighting over fake fighting on paper, he’d always choose the fight involving real sweat and blood and tears (preferably his opponent’s).

Nevertheless, he decided to take pity on Gosunkugi and went to rescue him after school. In the end, it took the help of Kodachi Kuno _again_ , who knew the house layout and location because she regularly bought flower clippings from the girl’s mother. The deliveries had stopped while the family was “dealing” with Gosunkugi, and Kodachi had something brewing that needed one of their flowers urgently. He’d run into her outside their house.

Luckily she was annoyed enough to help Ranma out. He didn’t even have to promise her a date or anything. (Of course, he also did all of his negotiating as a female and acted too dumb to understand her questions and threats about boy-Ranma. He also used his newly enhanced feline agility to avoid her attempts to douse him with sleeping powder and a full-body hug when an accident with a broken water pipe revealed her “darling Ranma” and the ‘strange’ disappearance of that “conniving tramp” Ranko.)

All in all, if you ignored his near loss of control, it turned out to be a normal week in the life of Ranma Saotome. The only difference was the absence of Akane. She hadn’t stayed for the exorcism or come with him to rescue Gosunkugi. She had to stay after school to help out with that stupid committee which was suddenly taking up all of her time. Sure, it was an easy rescue, but he still missed having Akane there.

Normally, she was forcing him to take her along, especially if it was dangerous or someone needed saving. Nowadays he only put up a token resistance before giving in. Not having her as backup was surprisingly disconcerting.

The entire rescue he’d kept turning to say something to Akane, or to ask her to do something, only to remember that she wasn’t there. He’d even accidentally called Kodachi “Akane” at one point, which had NOT gone down well with the psycho Kuno. Needless to say, Kodachi had not tossed him the rope that would have saved him from a dip in the pit of saber tooth fish. Ranma hated water even more now than he had before Okinawa, if that was possible. He’d hissed at her angrily and bared his fangs, er teeth, but somehow it only seemed to excite Kodachi.  She’d thrown one of her ribbons then to help Ranma out, but it hadn’t been worth getting that close to her, especially as a guy.

Things would have been better with Akane there. Not that he _needed_ Akane’s help. He just liked having it, that’s all.

* * *

 

Akane still felt horribly guilty, even a week later. She had made Ranma go and rescue Gosunkugi on his own last week. The only way she could feel any worse was if he’d managed to hurt himself without her there to watch out for him. Luckily, he’d made it home safely with only a few strange bite marks that had healed quickly. However, he’d had to team up with that nut Kodachi Kuno to go get Gosunkugi out. Akane just hoped he could eventually forgive her for abandoning him to Kodachi’s tender mercies.

Although Akane couldn’t help but intervene when things were happening at school (and thank goodness she had considering Ranma almost got his head chopped off by that razor-sharp bow), her side still felt too tender for the gymnastics required for a basement rescue. Almost two years of craziness had given her enough experience with sneaking into people’s secret lairs and basements that she could calculate exactly what was physically involved. If something went wrong and she couldn’t move fast enough because of her side, either she or someone else could get seriously hurt. Staying back was the only option, no matter how much she hated it.

On their first day back at school, Akane had volunteered for an after school committee. The unpredictable schedule of committee meetings gave her a lot of excuses to avoid both Ranma and physical competitions while her side healed. If she sometimes lied about having a meeting, no one had noticed yet. At those times she either did low-impact exercises or read the self-help books she kept sneaking from Kasumi’s room. The collection Kasumi had amassed explained a lot about her Zen aura in the face of their crazy household. 

Of course, to add to the weirdness of her life, Akane had started having dreams and nightmares about being in the cat fist. Not every night, but several times a week. Sometimes they were silly dreams where she pounced on wind-pushed plastic bags and wiggly toes, and had fun racing down the street after mice and other cats.

But other dreams were awful, like being terrified of cats and running away, only to be caught and forced into becoming something else. Or when she’d been strapped with so many fish sausages that the smell had made her gag, and then she’d been pushed into a dark pit. Landing had hurt, but the scratching, clawing, biting, screeching cats swarming over her body had been worse. She had no idea how she’d kept herself from screaming the house down with that one.

Sometimes after the bad dreams, she wanted to go and crawl into Ranma’s futon and steal a little comfort. But she didn’t want him to know what had upset her. It would hurt him to know that he was the star of her nightmares, and Akane didn’t want Ranma hurt. Not unless she was hurting him on purpose, that is. Focusing on not worrying Ranma, she would dry her tears and focus on slowing her breathing.

She couldn’t go to her father for comfort either. He was useless at things like this, and would just unintentionally make her feel worse. Horrible experience had taught her that.

At those times, in the dark of her room feeling at her lowest, Akane sometimes felt like something unseen was in the room with her, sending her comfort and promising to keep her secrets, promising to keep her safe. Something warm and soft would cuddle up against her back with a soothing rumble, and somehow Akane would fall back to sleep. She’d wake up from those terrible dreams about the cat fist, but then fall asleep to imaginary purring. It sounded crazy when she thought about it. Akane was really hoping that something in one of Kasumi’s books would help with the nightmares and strange feelings. Otherwise, she might be hallucinating or going crazy.

Being lonely probably wasn’t helping. Akane missed hanging out with Ranma. Sure she was avoiding him for a little while, but every once in a while it almost seemed like Ranma was avoiding her too. She didn’t have any other explanation for his sudden intense interest in meditation or leaving to go and practice insanely complex katas almost every time she came into a room.

He kept acting oddly in other ways too. He’d either refuse to meet her eyes or even look at her, or else he would give her such penetrating stares that she felt stripped and catalogued and _claimed_. Somehow, she got the feeling that he didn’t realize that he was doing it either. The distance and oddness helped her keep her secret, but it was lonely and weird.

Today, she had her part-time job helping out at Dr. Tofu’s practice. Although they’d gotten back from their trip a couple of weeks ago, she’d been too busy with her added school commitments to come in until now. Luckily the work Dr. Tofu had for her this month was pretty flexible. Before she’d left on her trip, she had made sure to put in some extra hours to get ahead.

In addition to having Akane clean his offices and do some heavy lifting, lately Dr. Tofu had given Akane some of his filing and administrative work to do as well. He knew she planned on running the dojo one day. She suspected that was part of the reason he was also teaching her how to keep records, do billing, file official paperwork, and all in all, run a successful small business. He never let her make the tea or coffee in the waiting room though, which was unfair. She had gotten good at tea!

As Akane swept the steps in front of Dr. Tofu’s office, she smiled to herself at the odd sight of Mousse and Dr. Tofu playing shogi inside. After bonding over the frustrations of spectacles and making fools of themselves in front of the women they loved, a friendship had sprung up between Dr. Tofu and Mousse. They seemed to have a steadying influence on each other.  Neither had yet won the woman they loved, but both of them seemed to be making progress.  Akane had seen Shampoo watching Mousse with a speculative eye when he wasn’t looking.

As for Kasumi, she slowly began borrowing books from Dr. Tofu again and coming over for tea, something she had stopped doing last year. Since Kasumi and Dr. Tofu were two of the people she respected most in the world, she really hoped they could find happiness with each other. They deserved to be happy. She wouldn’t mind Mousse taking Shampoo away either.

Idly she tried to picture her own future. The possibilities were too jumbled for her to get a clear picture though. She resolutely refused to think about the state of her spirit, any possessions thereof, or how that might affect her longevity. However, she could almost picture being happily married to Ranma and teaching together with him at their dojo. Though with all of the obstacles in their way, maybe their marriage would never happen, and she’d have to get over thinking about him all of the time.

If Ranma did run off with one of his hussies, and she didn’t end up in prison for murdering him, and if Kasumi married someone else, and Dr. Tofu got over his crush on her sister and realized that Akane wasn’t a child anymore and actually tried to court her, Akane would probably be able to fall in love with him again. Of course, he’d never need her as much as Ranma did, and he’d probably never make her as happy as Ranma could.

Grimacing, Akane swept harder.

She acknowledged that Ranma was the black hole her life currently orbited around. All of her thoughts, emotions, and attention swirled around Ranma. She couldn’t escape his gravity, and at this point wasn’t sure she wanted to. Either the experience would transport her through the wormhole to somewhere wonderful, or else she’d become stretched so thin she’d exist in a limbo of unhappiness and discontent for the rest of her life. 

_Stop being so melodramatic!_ Akane told herself as she glared at the steps, ignored the creaking of the broom handle and snapping bristles, and swept faster. S _top daydreaming about Ranma in physics class, and start paying more attention to the actual lecture. Honestly!_

“Um, Akane,” Dr. Tofu said hesitantly, “I think the steps are clean enough. If you keep sweeping like that, you’ll break the broom and wear away the rock!”

“Oh, Dr. Tofu!” Akane exclaimed with a startled jump. “I’m sorry.” Grimacing, she started to put a hand to her jostled stitches for a split second before forcing her face smooth and dropping her hand.

Tilting his head so that the sunlight glinted opaquely off the surface of his glasses, Dr. Tofu said, “Why don’t you put away the broom and come and help me in my office.”

Akane followed him inside. “What can I help you with?” she asked.

“Well,” Dr. Tofu said as he leaned back against his desk and smiled softly, “since it is just you, me, and Betty the skeleton in here right now, I was hoping you could tell me what’s wrong with your side.”

“Um,” Akane replied intelligently. Although she’d told the monks that she’d get her doctor to look at her stitches, she’d hoped she could get by without it. Denial of the whole experience was working out pretty well for her, except for the occasional nightmare. Would he go for the menstrual cramps explanation?

Radiating calm and trustworthiness, Dr. Tofu continued, “You don’t have to tell me anything you don’t want to, but I hope you know that I’m here to help you in any way I can. You can trust me, Akane.”

“I know I can,” Akane assured him. “It’s just… I, well,” she fumbled, hesitated, but then continued after carefully choosing her words. “On my recent trip to Okinawa, Ranma and I ended up in the middle of a kidnapping. We managed to get out just fine. My side got a little cut during our escape, but I’m fine.” Akane flushed guiltily, “Ranma doesn’t know about it. He just thinks I got sick from spending the night outside in wet clothes.”

Dr. Tofu let the silence go on for a minute in case she had anything more to add, then he said, “Thank you for telling me, Akane. I won’t betray your secret. Why don’t you hop up here onto the table and let me have a look at how it is healing up.”

Akane hopped up onto the exam table and rolled up her shirt, exposing the bandages. Dr. Tofu pulled on a pair of gloves before he deftly unwrapped the cloth, not pausing to comment on the size and severity of her “little cut,” which she appreciated. Tilting his head, he ran his fingers carefully down the wound, and then gently palpitated her abdomen and side. “Hmm,” he hummed absently. “You say this happened recently?” he asked.

“Well, a couple of weeks ago,” she replied. “Is there a problem?”

Dr. Tofu cleaned the jagged wound off with a little soap and water. He then turned away to pull open the middle drawer of the medicine cabinet, his hand wavering before he decided on a jar of ointment to pull out. After shutting the drawer, he turned back and finally answered her question as he began dabbing the ointment on top of her stitches. “No, no, I just would have guessed that you received this at least a month ago, based on the level of healing I’m seeing. How extraordinary. Good for you!”

He smiled at her and closed up the jar. “Now, are you experiencing any other problems, like an unexpected level of pain or foul smelling discharge from the wound?” When she shook her head no, he marked something on a chart in illegible handwriting and asked, “When was your last menstrual cycle?”

Akane blushed and checked the calendar. “Um, a little over 5 weeks ago?” she answered without meeting his eyes. “I’ve been so busy I hadn’t really thought about it, but maybe I skipped this month because of the stress? That’s happened before.”

“Well, that’s perfectly normal, especially for an active girl like you. I wouldn’t worry about it too much unless you have reason to suspect something. Stress or illness can often cause a woman to skip a cycle, as you know. Just keep an eye on it, and let me know if you have any concerns or if your cycle doesn’t resume.”

Dr. Tofu made a few more notes in her chart and then asked, “Any bloating, constipation, or diarrhea? They could indicate damage to the bowel.”

“No, I’ve been regular,” she mumbled with another blush. Talking with him as a patient was sometimes so embarrassing! “The only problems I have with my side are a little throbbing and tenderness, especially when I move suddenly or try to do much,” she replied. “But it hasn’t even bled in almost a week, so it hasn’t been too bad.”

Pulling out a new roll of bandages, he wrapped up Akane’s side. “Well, let me know if it does get bad, or even just inconvenient,” Dr. Tofu said. “The stitches should finish dissolving soon. Take some over the counter painkillers for the aching in the meantime if you need to. I’ll want to check up on it again next week, please. Take this ointment with you and apply it twice a day until then.”

Dr. Tofu took off his gloves and went to the sink to wash his hands. Rolling down her shirt, Akane thanked him and stashed the ointment in her bag. Fiddling with her strap, Akane couldn’t make herself look up as she hesitantly asked, “Dr. Tofu? Will the ointment keep the cut from scarring?”

A warm hand squeezed her shoulder once and then let go as Dr. Tofu answered compassionately, “The jagged size and shape of your wound was complicated by what looks like blunt force trauma and infection. Clean, straight cuts tend to leave the least scarring. To work best, the ointment also needs to be used before a cut fully closes. I’m sorry, but the wound has already started to heal unevenly. If you use the ointment twice a day, it will minimize the scarring, but there’s no way short of plastic surgery to get rid of the scar completely.”

Patting her shoulder again, he said, “You are a beautiful girl, Akane, inside and out. No one will ever think less of you because of a little scar.”

Akane sent him a slightly watery smile before retreating to the reception room to water the plants and regain her composure. She hadn’t realized how vain she was about her body, but her wound was _ugly_. The scar would probably be ugly too. She didn’t want it, but it looked like she didn’t have a choice. As long as she was healthy, she should be content. But Akane wanted to be pretty and _normal_ looking too, not just healthy. She didn’t want children pointing at her in the public bath, or classmates making up stories. Thank goodness she didn’t have PE this semester. At least she could avoid talk in the locker room. 

_Oh calm down,_ she told herself, _you have other little scars, even if nothing this big._ Besides, she couldn’t regret protecting herself and Ranma from those men, could she? A scar was just a badge of survival, right?

Akane thought of when she’d met Mariko on the island, and seen the scars crisscrossing the older woman’s torso. Wiping dust off the leaves of the bonsai tree on the desk, Akane told herself firmly to stop being a teenage drama queen. Scars had made Akane admire Mariko all the more. She needed to stop feeling sorry for herself and take pride in her strength instead.

Someone would eventually see the scar, but she could decide what she wanted to tell people later. She had time. However, she didn’t have forever. Eventually her sisters would find out, and then inevitably Ranma too. Until she decided on a story, she would just have to practice hiding the scar in the bath with her arm until the motion became natural. She’d also have to practice being proud of the scar instead of ashamed. But she could do it! Putting away the cleaning supplies, Akane grabbed her bag, wrapped her scarf around her neck, and wished Dr. Tofu goodbye.

“Have a good evening,” he replied. Looking into her eyes he said very earnestly, “Thank you for trusting me to help you.” Even though she was over him, Akane couldn’t help but blush. He was still so handsome.

Then Dr. Tofu asked, “Is there a reason you haven’t told anyone about getting hurt? You might need someone else to talk to about it, since talking can help. I’m sure no one would think less of you.”

“Oh yes they would,” Akane retorted. “Daddy would flip out, restrict me from everything, and get way too overprotective. He’d also start crying all of the time again, and we just barely got him calmed down a bit over Nabiki leaving.” She paused and took a deep breath. “Plus, Ranma would stop treating me like an equal and would start trying to keep me back from fights again. I have earned my place as a martial artist in this town, but if Ranma and the other girls find out I’m hurt, they’ll either treat me as weak or else they’ll take advantage of the fact to get me out of the way for good.”

Dr. Tofu blinked in a bit of shock at her diatribe. Akane felt herself flush, but didn’t take back her words. Besides, the other thing she couldn’t say was that if she told the first part of it, she’d have to talk about the second part with the pearls and stuff. Ranma would keep digging and digging at her until she did, especially once he found out she’d concealed something this big in the first place, and she wasn’t supposed to talk about that stuff.

She didn’t want to. If she had her way, she’d prefer to just forget that it had ever happened. A small voice in her head reminded her that Dr. Tofu could be trusted, that he was an expert in spiritual manipulation, but it was drown out by a new surge of fear and disgust as her mind flashed on the face of her would-be rapist looming over her and the female monk mentioning her spirit’s disintegration of it got poked at too much. Akane bit her tongue and kept silent.

“Well,” Dr. Tofu finally said with a soft smile, “I can see you’ve made up your mind. But please remember that I’m always here for a chat if you need me.”

“Thanks,” she replied quietly, gave him a smile and bow in return, and left the office.

As she walked home, Akane hummed a song her mother used to sing around the house in the mornings. That song always made Akane feel better, and she needed to feel better right now. When she was able to smile almost naturally again, Akane told herself to start enjoying the last gasp of color in the autumn leaves as she walked. They really were beautiful along this street, with several crimson maples flaming high into the sky, plumage only partially denuded by the encroaching winter winds.

When Akane got home, she found Kasumi talking on the phone. “Oh, here she is,” said Kasumi as she beckoned Akane over. “Phone’s for you,” Kasumi explained as she held her hand over the receiver. Curious and slightly wary, Akane took the phone and said hello. A few seconds later, she relaxed. Yuka was having a sleepover that weekend and was demanding that Akane attend. She probably just wanted to gush to Akane and Sayuri all about her new boyfriend. However, Yuka was also bribing them to come with promises of listening to her new Jpop CD, practicing make-overs and manicures, testing if Sayuri could finally beat Yuka’s high score in Tetris, and baking brownies (Yuka and Sayuri ONLY) while Akane WATCHED from a distance and cuddled Yuka’s cat without hysterical finger-pointing by haters/Ranma. Smiling at the thought of relaxing with her friends, even if they wouldn’t let her help bake anything, Akane agreed to the date and hung up the phone.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AN: This got way, way longer than I intended. The next chapter will probably be a lot shorter. The Tofu scene was at the end, but then all of these other things kept elbowing their way in before it, driving me nuts! But I promised the Tofu, so I wanted to deliver. Next time, Ranma runs into a cat and notices a difference in the cat fist. So, swallowing his pride, Ranma goes to Akane and asks for her help, since he knows he can trust her with his secrets. Akane accidently mentions one of her secrets too, but Ranma is too focused on his own problems to notice.
> 
> Please let me know your thoughts and speculations! I’ve really been enjoying them! And did you catch the two shows I referenced in this chapter? Hint: one is an anime starting with an R and the other a live-action drama starting with a P.


	24. Gluttony and a Cat Chat

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Olympics have been consuming my evenings, and I’m moving in a week so I’ve been packing. Oh, the shows referenced in the last chapter were the anime/manga Rurouni Kenshin and the J-drama “Pride” (even though Pride was in the 2004. But it had the Queen song ‘I was born to Love You’ as the theme, so my temporal caring went off line when I referenced it).

Over the next few weeks, Ranma worked on his control. His emotions and reactions definitely felt different since Okinawa, but after over a month of practice Ranma felt like he mostly had a handle on it. The cord between Akane and his Ki got easier to access as he practiced Martial Arts Geometry, but the strength of it still fluctuated unpredictably, as did any information but location and a sense of general well-being. Ranma had felt that feeling of being watched a few more times when he accessed it, but it never stayed long enough for him to figure it out.

Ranma just hoped it didn’t have anything to do with what that crazy demon girlfriend of Gosunkugi’s had said. Unfortunately, Ranma had too many immediate problems to worry about the vague ones right now. He’d focus on figuring it out later, as soon as he defeated his latest challenger, managed to graduate from High School, and got Akane to agree to marry him of her own free will.

If he didn’t know better, he’d say Akane was avoiding him lately just as much as he’d been sort of avoiding her, but that didn’t make sense. She didn’t seem mad. She wasn’t hitting him more than usual, and she hadn’t broken any bricks in weeks.

He hoped she wasn’t avoiding him because she’d noticed him avoiding her. Since his control had been shaky, he’d been trying to distance himself from her just in case. After all, he was a man, not some animal unable to control his impulses. Nevertheless, sometimes he forgot and did things that might be a little abnormal for him in the past. _Could she have noticed that? Was she weirded out by him now?_

Ever since they’d gotten back from Okinawa, he’d been struggling with the urge to touch her all the time. Sometimes he gave in, and would let himself brush against her arm at dinner. Once or twice he’d even sat at the foot of her chair while she worked at her desk, just so he could lean back and feel the heat of her legs against his back and side while he did his homework. He knew the cat part of him was to blame for some of it. But part of it was Ranma giving in to his own impulses as well. He kept trying to find excuses to casually touch her even when he shouldn’t.

_But Akane let him!_ He wasn’t quite sure why yet. Ranma didn’t want to get his hopes up, so he mostly wasn’t thinking about the why.

It wasn’t like he was touching her every day or anything though, because he didn’t get to see her very much lately. She kept disappearing into her room with the door closed, or to some school meeting, or to a friend’s house, and he’d barely see her for days except during meals and classes. Akane was involved in a lot of school activities and was popular with the other students. He couldn’t expect to be the focus of her attention all the time, even if he selfishly wanted to be. He tried not to worry too much about it, but it was hard not to take her absence personally.

_Especially when she was keeping secrets._

One day, they were lounging in the living room watching TV with everyone when Akane got a phone call. “Hello, Tendo dojo.” Akane said into the phone. “Yes, this is Akane.” Then her back got stiff and she turned away from the living room, walking around the corner out of sight as far as the cord would allow. Ranma casually leaned back and tilted his head to better hear the conversation. He wished he could just lurk on the other side of the corner, but everyone else in the room would then try to eavesdrop too, and the noise would either give him away or cover up anything she said.

He knew this from experience.

“You were supposed to come and visit weeks ago!” Akane hissed into the phone. “Where are you?”

_Just who was she talking to that was supposed to come and visit, and why was it a secret? Was it a guy?_ _Another long lost friend that was madly in love with her? It better not be._ Ranma felt a cold knot start to tighten in his belly.

There was silence for a few moments as the other person spoke, and then Akane said, “What! What did you do to get locked up!?” When the other person answered, Akane gasped and then laughed. “Wow, okay, yeah that would do it.”

Now Ranma was burning up with curiosity. _Did locked up mean sent to their room by angry parents, or thrown in jail for committing a crime?_   _Just_ who is _she talking to?_

Then Akane replied, “Well, yes, I’m fine and nothing has happened yet, but this one girl who was possessed said-,” and Akane’s words cut off as if interrupted. “But-, well no, I haven’t mentioned it to anyone but-,” she sighed unhappily. “Yes, okay… I know, okay?”

Ranma really wished he knew who she was talking to. And just what did Gosunkugi’s demon-possessed girlfriend say to her? Was it anything like what she’d said to him? Ranma really hoped not. Akane didn’t deserve to hear crap like that. Maybe if he pretended to go to the bathroom, he could run up and get on the extension still in Nabiki’s room. You could totally pick that phone up without any betraying clicks. He shoulda thought of it earlier.

Stretching his arms, he mumbled something about being right back and strolled out of the room towards the stairs. No one bothered to glance away from the drama on the TV screen. Glancing back surreptitiously, he saw Akane rubbing her forehead with the hand not holding the phone.

“I will,” she said quietly, then, “No, I do appreciate you helping me out. I know you’re trying. Good luck on getting out, and on your travels, but maybe try to avoid the frat parties next time?”

Ranma couldn’t hear anything else as he ran up the stairs and into Nabiki’s room. But then he oh so carefully picked up the extension and placed it to his ear. The call was noisy, with the sound of multiple people talking, phones ringing, and a strange clanking in the background. An almost familiar female voice was saying, “-lax and enjoy being a high schooler for a few more months. Go flirt with some guys. Get your parents to pay for stuff and have fun with your friends.”

“I’m working on it,” Akane replied in a snappy, surly tone as Ranma struggled to place the voice. “But I don’t like having this hanging over my head. If you find out anything, or if there’s something I can do to help, please let me know as soon as you can.”

_Just what was hanging over Akane’s head? Could it be as simple as something with school, or was there a more sinister explanation?_

“I will,” the other voice soothed. “I know this is taking longer than we expected, but I won’t give up until I have answers for you, alright?”

“Alright,” Akane answered quietly, no longer sounding angry, just tired and slightly defeated.

“If I don’t have anything by summer, I’ll come and see you one way or another, but I honestly don’t think it will take that long. They’ll let me outta here in a few more hours and then I’ll catch the train north. There’s a library in a temple up there that should have the answers we need. Stay positive, okay?”

“I’ll try,” Akane said. “Take care of yourself.”

“I always do. Bye,” said the other woman on the phone. She sounded like an older woman to Ranma, but he still had no idea who she was.

“Goodbye,” Akane sighed as the woman hung up the phone. Then she hung up too.

Ranma was still in the dark. Some woman was looking for something for Akane, and was taking too long to find it. _But what were they looking for, and why was it such a secret?_

Hanging up the phone extension, Ranma went into his room and grabbed his history book as an excuse for why he’d been lingering upstairs. It took him a minute to figure out where he’d thrown it after he’d gotten bored of reading it earlier. Finally, he discovered it under a pile of dirty clothes. Now armed with an excuse, Ranma went back downstairs.

When he reached the living room though, Akane wasn’t there. “Where’d Akane go?” he asked as he glanced around.

Mr. Tendo glanced over to reply, “Her friend needed her to look something up for school tomorrow, so she’s up in her room.”

She must have gone by him when he was looking for the stupid book. And he’d been planning on grilling her about that phone call, darn it. Annoyed, he dropped back down onto the floor and decided to just keep watching TV with everyone else, his book forgotten. The next morning Akane, left early for a school committee again, so he couldn’t question her at breakfast.

For the next few weeks, things got pretty busy. While chasing after his Pops, Ranma got sucked into a cool tournament centering on Ki-only snow manipulation, basically a snowball fight that made throwing snow with either your hands or feet illegal. Then right after that finished up, he had to help out with a challenge over at Ukyo’s for a while. Mostly he was backup and helped stock vegetable bins and clean tables, since his cooking wasn’t up to Ukyo’s standards, no matter how much she might like him otherwise. Since Akane never seemed to come home from one boring school thing after another anyways, Ranma stopped spending much time at home beyond sleeping and gulping down meals.

Ranma didn’t get to see Ukyo as much since she’d dropped out of High School to focus on expanding her restaurant business. Although he hadn’t told anyone that he’d picked Akane, he felt particularly bad about Ukyo. She was his oldest friend. Sometimes, he even thought she was Akane’s friend too when he wasn’t in the picture. He just hoped Ukyo would forgive him when she finally found out who he’d chosen, who he always had and always would choose.

For now though, he was trying to help her out as much as he could, especially since there was no Akane at the house to hang out with. It was good to see Ukyo so happy with her business though. Ukyo deserved to be happy.

Although Ranma did his best to stay busy and distracted, he couldn’t help missing Akane. He refused to admit that he was moping, but he did occasionally have horrible thoughts about her not missing him at all that made him want to wipe the dust from his eyes and break things. And there may have been an accidental _shishi h_ _ō_ _k_ _ō_ _dan_ in the middle of the park that had flattened a few trees and created a small crater, but whatever. No one had seen it so, if a tree falls from a depression Ki blast in the forest and there are no witnesses, it makes no sound and didn’t happen.

When Akane was home, she always sat somewhere with enough space for him to sit with her, and she always greeted him with a smile. It was something, but Ranma wanted more from her. Much more.

Stuffing his face one dinner evening with Kasumi’s heavenly cuisine, Ranma acknowledged to himself that he was a glutton. As with most things about himself, he wasn’t ashamed of it. He didn’t do diets if he could help it. There weren’t many things he wanted for himself, but when it came to food, martial arts, and Akane, he wanted as much as he could get, as often as he could get it, and right now, the Akane-craving part of him was starving.

One of his favorite fantasies started with eating a glorious meal of takeout (because no fantasy starting with Akane’s cooking was a good one), and then getting into a fight at the table with Akane, where they sparred verbally, trading teasing words, and then physically, with both flying food and flying fists, and then she tumbled down onto the cushions and he tumbled down after her and they both ended up laughing hard. The laughter would fade as they stared intently into each other’s eyes. And then he’d impulsively lick a bit of sauce off of Akane’s cheek, and she would reclaim the sauce back from his mouth with her tongue, and then they’d wrestle until he was forced to hold her down. She’d squirm a little bit, but soon be moaning his name and arching into his touch as he made a feast out of every inch of her luscious body until she was stuffed and he was glutted and they both passed out from glorious exhaustion.

Shifting so his lap was a little more hidden under the kotatsu blanketing the table, just in case, Ranma jerked his mind back to the well-cooked meal and the inane conversation about local politics until he could calm down.

Several more weeks passed uneventfully. Then suddenly, Ranma had more on his plate to worry about than just the absence of Akane.

Ranma ran into a _cat_.

It was a Saturday, and Akane had disappeared to another unimportant, unnecessary school thing. Ranma really hated all those school things. Both Dads had gone out somewhere for the day too, probably to play pachinko. Ranma was _bored_.

So he wandered in the direction of the Neko Hanten in hopes of stirring up some trouble.  Maybe he could catch Mousse or Shampoo on break, or even the old Ghoul, and convince them to do some sparring. If he was lucky, maybe they’d teach him a new Chinese trick or two.

Cheered at the thought, he jogged around to the back of the restaurant and hopped up onto the fence. Looking down, he saw Mousse scratching his head sheepishly with an empty bucket dangling from one hand.  He said something in Chinese that steamed in the cold air. Ranma translated it as, “ _sorry (something something) Xianpu._ ” Ranma’s understanding of Chinese wasn’t great despite travelling there several times. Seconds later, a dripping, bedraggled cat stepped daintily out from behind a box, hopped up onto the plywood laid on the top of it, shook the water violently off her fur, and then hissed at Mousse angrily.

Ranma flinched, and both heads, feline and bespectacled, turned his way at the movement. His muscles tensed to flee in terror of the _cat_. But suddenly, a foreign feeling of glee bubbled up from somewhere. A split second later, his awareness was sucked down in a whirlpool and he felt twirled about until his thoughts tumbled over and stuck, dangling as if entrapped in a cocoon of spiders silk. Part of him saw the backyard below, and part of him saw himself hanging in a net suspended from a tree in a familiar courtyard. He couldn’t move or speak, only watch dimly in shock and horror as his body crouched down and then leapt towards, instead of away from, Shampoo’s cat form.

None of the watchers, including him, seemed to expect his body to land on the end of a dangling board, flipping up the other side and launching Shampoo-cat high into the sky. Giving a feline yowl of triumph, his body then turned and leapt away. Easily hopping up over the fence, he trotted down the alleyway.  An enraged howl sounded behind him as Shampoo-cat reappeared on the roof of the building behind him and gave chase. His body looked back over his shoulder, gave a feline laugh, and then picked up speed. They then spent the next hour playing chase together and hunting down random bits of windblown paper.

Despite his best efforts, Ranma couldn’t seem to take back control of his body. It was obviously the cat fist, but like never before. He’d never slipped into it so quickly before, nor had he ever actually been aware during it.

After a few minutes, Ranma decided give the other guy a chance (since he didn’t seem to have a choice). He forced his mind to relax and just observed from the inside what must be his body with the cat fist in charge. _Let the other guy stretch his legs a little and see if he can be trusted with it,_ he told himself.

As soon as he stopped straining, he began to sense his cat side’s emotions too. They were pretty simple: fun, hungry, hunt, and chase! Ranma-cat delighted in the hunt, even if it wasn’t for food or fighting, just for fun. He loved the feel of the wind in the fur on his head as he swerved around obstacles and scrambled over walls and buildings. 

A few times it became difficult to separate the emotions of cat fist Ranma from human Ranma. Like when he missed having a tail. At first it seemed completely reasonable, and then Ranma had to remind himself that he was grateful that he didn’t grow a tail during the cat fist, because that would be ridiculous and cause even more problems. He didn’t need to be even more of a freak.

They finally circled back to the Neko Hanten, and Shampoo-cat invited him inside with a curve of her body and flick of her tail. Curious, hungry, and slightly cold despite the running around, Ranma-cat followed her into the kitchen. Shampoo-cat jumped up onto the sink, batted the hot water faucet on, and splashed herself with one paw. Wary, he stayed out of reach of the spray. Ranma-cat wasn’t ready to stop having fun yet.

Human once again, Shampoo grabbed a dress from a nearby shelf and slipped it on. Then she grabbed a bowl and filled it with pieces of fish. She might have said something, but Ranma-cat didn’t really notice or care, so Ranma’s human awareness had trouble caring either. Those fish smelled good.

Ranma-cat butted up against her thigh and reached for the bowl with his teeth, but she lifted it higher and hip-checked him back hard enough to send him crashing into the wall. When he got up to shake the stars from his eyes, he saw her sashaying into a side room to kneel down on the ground. He pounced after the bowl, but Shampoo twisted it out of his reach around her body. Twisting back in the opposite direction, Ranma-cat ended up pressed up to her back and half-curled over her shoulder.

Shampoo laughed and lifted the bowl closer to his face. Triumphant, Ranma chewed and swallowed the tasty fish. He ate leaning over her shoulder because it was closest to the bowl. Shampoo leaned back into his body and scratched her nails up and down his thigh. There may have been some squeezing. He didn’t really care. The fish tasted good.

When the fish was gone, Shampoo tried to grab onto him and guide him deeper into the building, but he was done with her for now. He’d gotten his chases and fishes, and now he wanted other things that were not Shampoo things. Shaking off her grasping fingers and letting her jabbering flow over his head, he slipped around her legs, leapt over the fence again, and darted away down the street.

Several blocks later, he caught the scent of Akane outside a building and decided to investigate.  Keeping low, he snuck into the building and past the people in front without their seeing him. Winding his way down hallways and past doors, he kept going until the scent of his almost-mate turned into the sight of her. Grumbling happily, he climbed up onto the table where she sat and sprawled himself in front of her with a purr.

“Ran into a cat again, huh Ranma?” Akane asked dryly as she tried to slide her paper and book out from underneath his body. He shifted to make it more difficult and then rubbed his face against her arm. “You’re on my stuff,” she complained. “How am I supposed to work now?” Ranma rolled onto his back in front of her, trapping one of her hands beneath his back, and presented his tummy to her front and center with a soulful look.

Down in the courtyard where his human awareness dangled helplessly, Ranma writhed in horror at the shamelessness of his cat side. _What was he_ doing _? And how badly was Akane going to pound him for this?_

“You are ridiculous,” Akane stated, making no move to rub his belly or hit him. His cat side was disappointed. Ranma was confused. Then Akane sneakily grabbed the edge of her book and yanked hard, sending Ranma’s body sliding off the table and onto the floor at her feet with a startled yowl and hard thump.

A man came to the door mere seconds later. “You okay, Tendo-san? I heard a yell or something.” 

Akane kicked Ranma cat under the table and kept his struggling body down with her feet while she lied, “No, sorry, I didn’t hear anything. I was lost in my reading.”

“Oh okay, sorry to bother you,” he said with a small blush. “If you do need anything, let me know.”

“I will, thanks,” Akane said, not letting on that she was wrestling a squirming Ranma to the ground with only her feet.

Tipping his hat, the man finally wandered away back down the hall.

As soon as the steely press of her feet relaxed, Ranma shrugged them off. He shook himself to remove the dust and feel of being restrained and huffed in annoyance. But Ranma-cat was nothing if not persistent, like Ranma himself. So he pushed his body between her legs and the table and leaned until her wheeled chair rolled backwards. When there was enough space to squeeze into the gap, he put his head on her knee, looked up, and meowed pitifully.

“Ridiculous,” she proclaimed again, but then her lips quirked and she put her fingers in his fur and gave him good scratchies. Purring happily, Ranma half-closed his eyes, leaned harder into her lap, and then went boneless. Belly full and being petted by his favorite person, all was perfect in his world. On this thought, both of Ranma’s sides were in perfect accord. Between one breath and the next, they drifted off to sleep.

* * *

 

Ranma woke up with the knowledge that he remembered being in the cat fist, even if he hadn’t been in control. His excitement started to deflate a bit though, when his cynical side chimed in with, _Unless it was all wishful thinking or a dream_.

Grimacing at this depressing thought, Ranma opened his eyes and looked around. He was curled up on his side staring at a pair of very nicely muscled calves and trim ankles. Looking up, he confirmed that he was curled around Akane’s feet. _Maybe I really do remember it_ , he thought happily.

Akane was reading from some book with a very intent expression. She hadn’t noticed him waking up, so he took the opportunity to simply drink in the features of her face. Suddenly, she gave a quick gasp and a little wrinkle appeared between her brows. She chewed on her lower lip for a second. Then she sighed, her face relaxed, and her eyes flicked up from the page, dreamy and unfocused. But a second later she looked down and intercepted his gaze.

“Oh,” she said with a startled little jump. “You’re awake.”

“You make the most interesting faces when you read,” Ranma observed drowsily.

Akane flushed, but replied, “And you’re no longer a cat, so get up off the floor and dust yourself off, idiot.” Standing up and stepping over his body, she began packing up her stuff.

Ranma stood up and stretched with a few popping joints and a contented grunt. On his way to the door, he snatched Akane’s bag from her hands and slung it over his shoulder. “C’mon, let’s get on home. It’s almost dinnertime,” he said.

As they ambled down the street together, something he rarely got to experience these days, Ranma sent Akane a look from the corner of his eye and asked casually, “So I didn’t do nothin’ embarrassing while I was a cat, did I?” He wanted to know her reaction to the shameless rubbing up against her legs and to how he’d all but forced her to pet his hair. Maybe he was an idiot for asking, but he had to know what she thought.

There were a few beats of silence. Then Akane replied, “Nah, nothing unusual.”

_What does that mean!_ Ranma silently howled in frustration. _Did he always do shameless things like that in the cat fist, or was she just sparing his feelings because this was the first time he’d acted so weird? Or did none of that really happen and was it all a delusion?_

Before he could ask a follow-up question, she interrupted his chaotic thoughts, “Do you think we’ll run into anymore winter-based martial arts this season?” This question side-tracked Ranma until they returned home to the Tendo Dojo and were welcomed home by Kasumi.

Unfortunately, they were also welcomed by both of their fathers chowing down on Chinese take-out brought by Shampoo. Who was still there. His comfortable conversation with Akane was shattered, and he spent the rest of the evening avoiding the octopus arms of Shampoo and the glares and cold shoulder from Akane.

For a few seconds he considered trying to ask Shampoo about how she saw him behave as a cat earlier, but if she mentioned how he’d draped himself over her body and let her feed him fish while she basically felt him up, Akane would mallet him all the way to Hokkaido. He’d be in casts and full-body bandages for a week! As it was, the insinuations she’d already made were causing Ranma to consider staying up all night just in case he went to sleep and somehow never woke up.

Besides, if Shampoo didn’t mention anything that he thought he remembered, it would make him think he was crazy. Ranma didn’t want to be any crazier than he already was. He couldn’t take it right now. Maybe next week.

* * *

 

Unfortunately, it seemed that Shampoo’s visit heralded the start of several weeks of barely seeing or talking to Akane. It was worse than before! Some days, he didn’t even get to see her for one meal. Ranma wouldn’t say he felt lost without the constant companionship of Akane. The winter season itself was just making him feel bored and unenthusiastic with life. He was sure he’d get over it soon.

He’d just fallen into a funk for some reason, but at least his relationship with the cat fist seemed to be improving. In addition to maybe actually remembering what he was doing during the cat fist, which he hadn’t admitted to anyone yet since he still couldn’t control what he was doing and still wasn’t 100% sure he wasn’t delusional, Ranma had started having weird cat fist dreams too.

He didn’t fully trust them, because they _were_ dreams, but it was possible that he was remembering previous episodes of the cat fist while he slept. As time went on, he had more feline dreams, and suspected more and more that the memories really were returning, and that it had something to do with what had happened when he reestablished his bond with Akane in Okinawa. But always a fear lurked in the back of his mind that he was just fooling himself. He might be going mad. Nothing good and nice ever just fell into his lap. There had to be some sort of catch.

More challenges came and went. Winter flopped fully down onto Nerima with several snow storms and one full-fledged blizzard. Happosai sent a post card from the tropics and promised to visit at the end of March. Pops and Mr. Tendo made plans to be out of town when he visited. Ranma had several more cat fist episodes where he seemed to be aware but not in charge, but he still hadn’t mentioned the changes to anyone, and none of his hints after the fact worked to get anyone to confirm what he thought he was remembering.

During a casual cleaning of his room suggested by Kasumi with a truly scary smile, Ranma ran across some old photos left by Nabiki. As he flipped through pictures of himself from the past few years fighting in various challenges, he also found a few of himself in the cat fist. An excited tingle went down his spine when he noticed that some of his dreams matched up to the photos taken by Nabiki.  

_Maybe they weren’t dreams, but really memories after all_. _This could be proof that I’m not crazy!_ However, he needed to get independent verification that he was remembering his current and past actions in the cat fist. The dreams could still be just wishful thinking. After all, he’d probably glanced at these photos before. Maybe he was making up stories based on these pictures, instead of the other way around.

Ranma didn’t know the best way to test his memory. He suspected that any plan would require deliberately exposing himself to a cat and having a witness nearby to record events, so his strategizing had stalled. Ranma hated the paralyzing fear and loss of control that came with the cat-fist. It wasn’t manly. It was embarrassing. Getting to know his cat side and trying to accept it had helped a little bit, but the fear of cats was still there. Years of trauma and experience couldn’t be forgotten just like that.

* * *

 

One day, Ranma realized that two, almost three months had gone by since he’d returned from his trip to learn Martial Arts Geometry in Okinawa. Somehow he hadn’t realized so much time was passing. However, now that he did know, his delaying behavior was veering quickly into cowardice, and Ranma Saotome was no one’s coward. Finally he concluded that the only person he could trust with this was Akane.

A new semester was in full swing and Akane’s stupid committee thing was **_finally over_**. Akane was hanging around the house a lot more now. She’d started seeking him out at lunch and after school again too. The last few weeks, Ranma’s mood had drastically improved. He refused to think about it too much, for fear he’d find something else to mope about. Not that he’d been moping before or anything.

Whatever the case, Ranma had decided that it was time for a new grand plan. He was a genius! He could fix his relationship with Akane and get Akane to help him with the cat fist at the same time. He hoped that this would kill two birds with one stone, and let him figure out the changes in the cat fist and Akane’s true feelings. Then Ranma could get their relationship back on track to where he wanted it to be.

Last night, she’d let him lean against her legs again while she sat at her desk and they’d both worked on their math homework. Her reaction to his cat side had given him a little more courage when it came to touching. Or at least his assumption of the reality of her reaction if he wasn’t really crazy and hallucinating. But whatever the case, so far, Akane responded well to him leaning against her as long as he didn’t make a big deal of it. He also noticed that when he let his fingertips ‘accidentally’ glance along her forearm or leg, she’d give the most delightful shiver. This required further investigation.

His grades in geometry were awesome this semester, due mostly to his intensive study of the bond between him and Akane.  He kept trying to find a formula that would help him bounce his energy quickly enough to get a look at whatever he felt occasionally spying on his bond with Akane. So far, however, nothing had worked. It hadn’t let him read her thoughts either, which had been a faint hope. If he could read her thoughts, he might be able to actually understand her crazy female behavior.

The time was perfect because Ranma had just finished dealing with the tournament of martial arts dough making. That kid with the solar hands had made delicious-looking and smelling loaves of fluffy French bread, so it was probably lucky that the judge had been a surly Japanese Grandmother suspicious of western foods. Ranma’s buns had looked amazing though, so he was sure he would have won if they hadn’t cancelled the contest due to property damage and the judge falling into a food coma from eating too many carbohydrates and a pat of cursed butter. He still maintained that it was a mere coincidence that the dog who’d stolen his buns had vomited them back up less than a minute later, no matter what Akane claimed.

Yes, it was the perfect time to tackle the challenge of his memories of the cat-fist. Performing 50 slow pinky handstand pushups to work out his nervousness, Ranma stood up, cracked his neck on both sides, and went upstairs to Akane’s room. He flicked the yellow duck on Akane’s door with a fingernail nervously, making it sway. Then, taking a deep breath, he gave the door a decisive knock. 

“Come in,” Akane’s voice called out after a few seconds.

After opening the door, Ranma folded his hands behind his back tightly to hide his nervousness and slouched against the doorframe. “Hey Akane, do you have a minute?” he asked as casually as possible.

Akane was at her desk looking intently down at her book and chewing on the end of her pencil. “Jush le’ me finish thi’,” she garbled around the pencil in her mouth before tucking a strand of hair behind her ear, taking the pencil out of her mouth, and writing something down furiously.  Her scrunched brow and intense focus were adorable, he thought with a fond smile.

“There, what can I help…” her voice trailed off as she looked up at Ranma slouching in the doorway, blinked, and blushed, “you with?” she finished a trifle breathlessly before clearing her throat and closing her book.

Hmm, that was an interesting reaction, Ranma thought smugly. He’d have to slouch against walls around Akane more often if it made her stutter like that.

Clearing her throat, Akane asked, “Did you need to borrow my History book again? I just finished with it.”

“Oh, well, yes actually, but…” he trailed off. “I actually was wondering if I could get your help and advice on something else,” he paused again but forced himself to spit out, “not History, personal.” His hand drifted up to scratch the back of his neck sheepishly.

A surprised smile bloomed on Akane’s face as she turned fully to face him. “Of course Ranma, come on in and shut the door, if you need to.”

After nudging the door shut with his foot, Ranma went and sat on the end of Akane’s bed. Reminding himself that this was just Akane, that she knew as much about the cat fist as anyone else in his life, and probably more than anyone but his pops, Ranma tried to stop the nervous fiddling of his fingers and gurgling of his stomach. Akane leaned forward and gave him her full attention. The gurgling disappeared, but butterflies took its place. It was a bit heady to be the center of her focus, to tell the truth.

“So, you know how in the cat fist I don’t ever remember what I did when I wake up?” Ranma asked. When Akane nodded her head, Ranma continued, “Well, ever since we got back from Okinawa, I’ve been having these dreams where I’m in the cat fist and…,” he paused, swallowed, and then blurted out, “I think my dreams might be memories.”

Akane sat back in surprise, and said, “You’re dreaming about the cat fist too? That’s odd.”

“Yeah, dreams about the cat fist,” Ranma confirmed, too focused on getting out his explanation to really pay attention to what she was saying. “I might just be making it up based on things people have said and pictures Nabiki took, because some of the dreams match what’s happening in some of the pictures I got off of Kuno last year,” Ranma rushed through his explanation, barely stopping to breathe.

“So I’m not sure if its real or I’m just making it up. You were there for most of those things, though, so I was wondering if I could tell you some of my dreams, and you could tell me if they are true or not, since I trust you to be honest with me, Akane.” Ranma blushed and looked away from her eyes, not meaning to say the last part of that sentence out loud.

“Of course I’ll be honest with you, Ranma. You know you can talk to me about any of your dreams and I won’t mock you. Not about something this serious. You can trust me with anything,” she said earnestly, leaning forward and laying a gentle hand over his clenched fists.

Relaxing his hands, he turned his wrist and gave her fingers a small squeeze before letting them slide away so she could sit back. “Okay, here goes.” He took a breath and began, “In one of them, I’m up in a tree watching you practice in the dojo,” he paused to picture the scene more clearly. “I think about catching one of the black birds flying by, or trying to fish out one of the koi swimming below, but instead I find something I want more, so I decide to jump down and,” he stuttered to a halt, “I mean I get distracted, so I jump down and go over to the dojo where you are practicing. You’re doing something with your fingers and hands using a flashlight and some curtains and other stuff I don’t understand as a cat. I rub up against your legs until you stop practicing and give me your attention. You flick my braid out of my face and rub my shoulder, and then I follow you to the pond, where you splash some cold water on me. It turns me into a girl and I wake up.”

Akane and Ranma were both sporting blushes by the end of his story, but Akane still met his eyes when she said, “Yes, that happened a few weeks before we went to Okinawa. I was practicing a combination of Martial Arts Shadow Puppetry and Martial Arts Gymnastics.”

Ranma got distracted for a second, “You figured out how to combine those two? What kind of strengths does combining them give you verses using them separate?”

“Focus Ranma,” Akane scolded, “I can show you later. Do you realize you just repeated a real cat fist memory? Tell me another one. We need more proof.”

“Right, okay,” he said, shaking the tension out of his shoulders. Pulling out a handful of photos, he pointed at those he now thought he remembered. As he described the associated memories, Akane was able to corroborate almost all of them. The only ones she couldn’t were ones where he’d been chased away from her so she hadn’t been there to personally witness the events. Since that seemed to be the case, he decided to stop mentioning the dreams involving Shampoo, since it just seemed to make Akane tighten her teeth into an annoyed grind and repeat, “The Chinese hussy was alone with you for that one, too.”

He probably should never mention his recent excursion where he’d hung over Shampoo’s back while she fed him fish and run her nails up and down his thigh. At the time, he’d thought himself a cat, so he hadn’t really cared about the position, and her nails had scratched an itch on his knee so he could focus on grabbing the fish with his teeth. But remembering the events as a human took on a very different connotation and made his face flame. If Akane ever found out about that, she’d stomp him into jelly.

“Those are the last of my pictures, though I’ve had a few more dreams,” Ranma said. He started to describe one of them when Akane got a thoughtful look in her eyes, stood up abruptly, and went over to her closet. Crouching down, she pulled out a shoebox and rifled through it until she had a handful of photos. Bringing them over, Ranma realized that they were all pictures of him in the cat fist with Akane.

They were touching a lot in all of the pictures. Somehow, that seemed important. A light blush graced Akane’s cheeks. “Nabiki gave these to me before she left for college,” Akane mumbled.

Flipping through them carefully, Ranma felt his face also start to heat. Some of them seemed familiar, but why had he been laying on his back across Akane’s lap? Or pushing food into her face with his mouth? He really was shameless as a cat. Sorting out the ones that he thought he recognized, Ranma explained what he could to Akane.

When he finished with the last thing he remembered dreaming (that he was willing to admit in front of Akane), he looked at her hopefully. “So that’s it. You really remember all of those things happening, right?” he confirmed.

“I said I did, didn’t I? Ranma, this is wonderful.” They shared smiles. “Do you think you’ll know what you are doing during the cat fist now?” she asked.

“Well,” Ranma said slowly, “now that you mention it, the last few months I’ve been sorta aware during the cat fist.”

“What do you mean?” Akane asked. “Like, you’re in control of the cat fist now?”

Ranma shook his head. “No, I’m just a passive observer while my cat side is in charge. I don’t have any control. But I think I’ve been awake during it, and I think I remember what my cat side did as soon as I come back to myself.” He gave a bitter smile and added, “That is, if I’m not going even more crazy.”

“Oh Ranma,” Akane said sympathetically. “Don’t worry. Considering how crazy you already are, I don’t think there’s room for you to get any worse.”

For a minute Ranma looked at her in disbelief, before her serious face crumbled into giggles. Despite himself, Ranma found himself laughing along. It was a good release of tension, undoing a knot in his back he hadn’t even noticed.

“You’re such a jerk,” he mock complained. “Where is all that stereotypical comforting woman are supposed to be so good at?”

“Well,” Akane added, “how about this. Ready?” she waited for Ranma to meet her eyes. “Into every life, a little rain must fall.”

“Seriously, that’s it?” he asked with a suppressed smile.

“Yes. Now, don’t you feel better?” she asked with an impish grin.

“Oh yes, tons, thank you,” Ranma replied sarcastically. But he realized a moment later that it had really been the truth.

“So,” Ranma continued, “I was hoping you could maybe help me test the cat fist? I mean, we don’t need to go out and find a cat now, or even any time soon. But if at some point, later, we maybe could get a cat and test my response and memory… if I ever feel like it.” Ranma ignored Akane’s twitching lips. “Sometime _later_ ,” he reiterated. Sure he needed to test it, but he still dreaded that part and wanted to delay it for as long as possible.

Akane looked him over shrewdly, “Waiting isn’t going to make this easier, Ranma. It’s just going to make it worse,” she said. “We need to test this now before you talk yourself out of it. Let’s just go down to the dojo and get it over with.”

“But Akane,” Ranma whined.

“No,” she interrupted him. “You came to me because you trust me, so trust me now to help you. I know you, and you need to get this over with now, not have it hanging over your head. Otherwise, something else will come up in your crazy life and you’ll just keep pushing this to the bottom of your to-do list so you can deal with the current crisis. Then we won’t get to it until something really bad happens, or we’ll be trying to figure it out while getting dropped into a pit of hungry cheetahs or something.”

Ranma shuddered and went a little pale. “Not fair,” he complained.

“But true,” she replied with a smirk. “So here’s what we’ll do. You’ll go out to the dojo to wait for me. I’ll go borrow the neighbor’s cat and bring it over.”

“Hey,” Ranma stood up with a jitter, “when did the neighbors get a cat? And which neighbor??”

Akane stood up and patted his shoulder, “Don’t worry about it. They know about your situation and keep it under control.”

“What do you mean they know? Who told them? Did you-,” Ranma turned his face away angrily and pouted as he sat back down onto the end of her bed.

“Ranma,” Akane said sternly, “you’re not getting out of this, you can’t distract me that easily, and it doesn’t really matter. We can talk about all of our different neighbors’ pets later, though for your information it was Kasumi who told the owners of the cat to keep it away from our house. Now go wait in the dojo. Please.”

When Ranma remained silent, Akane’s stern features softened. Getting up from her chair gracefully, she stepped to his side. Then she placed two fingers under his chin and gently turned him back to face her. “It’ll be fine. I promise I’ll be there the whole time. I won’t let it get too bad. You _can_ trust me, Ranma,” Akane slid her fingers down the edge of his jaw, and then ran her thumb up and down the column of his throat once soothingly before stepping back, looking to the side with a slight blush as she cleared her throat. “I just want to help,” she said softly.

Looking up into her pink face, Ranma swallowed and nodded once carefully. His pulse had kicked up at her touch. “I know, Akane. I do trust you. It’s just… ca-cats, you know?” He looked down for a second and let out a slow breath.

Then, looking back up at her through his eyelashes, Ranma quirked his lips in a roguish smile, “Hey Akane, I have a great idea. Why don’t I go and wait for you in the dojo?”

Grinning, Akane pointed her finger at him and said, “What a great idea, Ranma! Why don’t you bring a bucket of cold water and the hot kettle with you, and I’ll see you there in a few minutes.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading and for your great comments! I’m moving next week, so the next chapter might be a tic slow too, but I’ll do my best. I’m going to have a washer/dryer in my apartment for the first time in 7.5 years, which means no more Laundromat. SO EXCITED! Laundromats eat socks and underwear and give you other people’s socks that you don’t want and that won’t fit you. Hopefully you are all having something good happen right now too.


	25. Whose side are you on?

A few minutes later found Ranma pacing nervously back and forth around the dojo. Occasionally he let himself throw in a few random tumbling passes and flips just for variety, but it didn’t seem to be helping the jitters. Against the wall sat the still steaming kettle and a bucket of cold water. He’d also brought a towel, a luxury that was usually out of reach when he got doused with water. But if he was going to go through with this testing, he was going to make himself as comfortable as possible.

In his preoccupation and worry, he missed the sounds of Akane walking up to the door. “Ranma,” she called softly, obviously trying not to startle him in his already worked up state. As he swung around, he saw her holding a lidded basket against her thigh. He could guess what was inside.

“Um, I think I- I think I changed my mind,” Ranma stuttered in a high-pitched voice as he slid backwards until his back was flush against the wall.

Instead of sighing in exasperation and rolling her eyes, Akane pinned him with an intense stare. It stopped his shuffling away, pinning him to the wall. “Ranma,” she said, “if you really need me to, I can turn back around and take this basket away.”

Ranma relaxed at her words, even allowing himself to wipe away a drop of sweat from the corner of his eyebrow.

“But,” she continued, causing him to tense up again, because he knew he wouldn’t like what she had to say next, “but then what? The confusion and fear you‘re struggling with right now with these changes in the cat fist will still be there. Nothing will be solved, and if you really think about it honestly, you won’t sleep better tonight because of that decision.”

Opening his mouth to argue back, Ranma found that words had deserted him. Closing his eyes for a moment, he gasped a breath in through his nose and desperately ignored the rustling sounds coming from inside the basket. Blowing out the air slowly, he tried to calm his racing heart, but it didn’t seem to be working.

As he opened up his eyes again, he latched onto the strength and determination in Akane’s eyes, holding onto her gaze like it was all that kept him from sinking under storm-tossed waves. Akane gave him an encouraging smile, set down the basket, and took a step forward. “You are brave enough for this, Ranma. I won’t let you be hurt,” she promised with a rush. “I’ll protect you, if you let me. Your memories and your fear are real enough, and they seem scary and horrible and I would take them from you if I could, but I can’t.”

As Akane spoke, the connection between them opened up without any prompting from his side. Somehow, unconsciously, she reached for him, and her feelings of fierce protectiveness poured over him, shoring up his faltering spirits and filling him with warmth and awe. Everyone knew that Ranma was the protector. Only Akane, the silly girl, would think that he needed to be protected. It was wonderful and humbling, and if she wasn’t standing a foot away from a basket holding a cat, he would wrap himself around her body, tuck his head into her neck, and hug her to himself for all he was worth.

Unaware of how she was affecting Ranma, Akane continued, “All I can do is help you learn to understand this side of yourself a little better. But I know you can do it. I know you can Ranma,” and she somehow unconsciously pushed a bit of confidence through the link, making him feel the emotion. She was incredible. He hadn’t been able to get any sort of emotional clarity like this from the link before, but she seemed to be effortlessly sending it his way. Maybe when this was all over, he should get her some training in manipulating spiritual energy. After he’d spilled the beans that they actually had a link like this first, of course.

“Who knows,” she gave him a conspiratorial grin, “you may even learn to enjoy the guy a little bit.”

“But what if he hurts you,” Ranma argued weakly.

“Really?” Akane asked him in a tone of disbelief. “That’s ridiculous. He’d no more hurt me than you would. He’s just as protective.” She rolled her eyes. “Also, he’s pretty nice, and he always seems to be having a great time. I like him quite a bit.”

Ranma’s felt something leap up at that admission, but he didn’t have time to formulate a reply before she said, “Maybe if you get to know each other, you’ll be able to learn to like him too, and maybe that acceptance will get you beyond your fear of cats.”

A disbelieving snort escaped Ranma at that assertion. “Let’s not get ahead of ourselves here,” he said.

Akane shrugged her shoulders and replied, “I’ve learned not to underestimate you in a fight, Ranma.” He blushed at the swell of feelings behind her words, but she wasn’t finished. “This is just another kind of fight, a fight to better understand and master yourself. You’ve done a pretty good job the last few years learning to get your girl side to work for you instead of against you. Now it is time for you to step up and learn to live with your cat side and make it work for you as well!” She challenged him.

Ranma was almost swayed… “But I’m still me in my head when I look like a girl. When I act like a cat, it isn’t just me in there. It’s not the same.”

“Well then you and he need to work out a partnership,” she said.

“Huh?” he responded.

She huffed and then explained, “Find a common goal! You’ve managed to successfully work with all sorts of people you didn’t like or trust, like Ryoga, Kuno, and even Happosai for goodness sakes. You’ve made friends of countless enemies. Stop trying to chicken out!”

“Hey,” he objected, straightening up in offense, but Akane ignored his interjection and kept talking over him.

“This is just another challenge,” she barked as she poked him in the chest, “another battle if you think about it right. Find common ground with your cat side. Isn’t there anything you both want? Anything you both really like?” she asked grabbing his hand and squeezing it encouragingly.

_YOU_ , Ranma thought immediately, but managed to keep from blurting it out. _We both really want, really like you._ Rolling his shoulders to release some tension, he looked away as he vaguely answered her with, “I guess so.”

“Well good,” she said bracingly, releasing his hand and stepping back. “Now, are you ready to meet your challenger? I think it’s time to start.”

Cracking his neck to the left and right, Ranma forced himself to sit down and rest his hands on his knees. “Okay Akane, g-go ahead,” he ordered, unwilling to drag this out any further, wanting it over with.

“Alright,” she said, “just so you know, I have a few objects that I’m going to show your cat side, and then when you wake up, your job is to tell me what they were to test your memory.”

“Right, good thinking,” he said.

Akane sent him one last encouraging smile, before kneeling down next to the basket and unlatching the cover. “Try to focus on keeping your breathing calm,” she said as she reached into the basket and brought out a small fluffy grey kitten.

Although his heart wanted to jump out of his chest and his lungs wanted to pump like a bellows, Ranma forced his breathing to stay steady. He couldn’t keep himself from freezing or his eyes from wanting to pop out of his head, but he could breathe. So he did.

He breathed in. Out. Innnnn and then he was in the courtyard sitting at the base of the tree, with his cat self purring at him, “I really do love her as much as you do, you’re right about that.” And then he was looking out at Akane holding a kitten as his cat side took control of their body and rolled himself up onto all fours. Focusing on his trust of Akane, he surrendered and let himself drift.

 Sauntering over to Akane, Ranma-cat leaned against her side and sniffed at the kitten. It was more interested in trying to catch the ribbon hanging from the neck of Akane’s shirt. Akane sat the kitten down on the ground and it proceeded to pad around exploring the dojo.

Ranma-cat stropped himself against Akane’s side and back, and then poked his head under the hem of her shirt where a tail should be. The cloth had ridden up to show a small, enticing slice of pale skin at the base of her spine. He licked it and tasted a bit of salt and the musk of Akane’s skin, different from the taste of her cheek. Different good. He liked the squeak she made too. Interesting. And fun!

Before he could explore further, she reached back, grabbed him by the pigtail, and yanked him hard back around to her front. _Ouch_! But it was his almost-mate, so it was okay. She may have yelled too, but she wasn’t really that mad so he ignored it.

He wanted to go and explore the swishy sounds of a bird hopping in the grass outside. Before he could, Akane tugged on his braid again and put a banana in his face. _Yuck_! She giggled and put the banana away.

Then she pulled out a ball that jingled and a plastic cup. The cup went _crinkle crinkle_ when he stepped on it, but it didn’t do much else. Boring! 

But the ball looked fun. Ranma-cat pounced. Tricksy ball, it rolled out from under his feet and spun away. Chase! Akane tried to keep the ball away from him, but he was too clever. They spent a while batting it around the dojo floor, walls, and ceiling. Akane was a good play-mate, fun and smart, but Ranma-cat was smarter! He caught the ball and killed it dead, ripping it to pieces and biting through its metal heart so it stopped making sounds. Smug, he pranced over to Akane’s feet and laid the carcass at her feet.

As was his right, she admired his kill, praised his skills, and gave him good scratchies. Akane was the best almost-mate ever. Only thing better would be if she was a real mate and not almost, but Ranma-cat knew that he would have to leave that part to stupid-slow Ranma-human. Life was so unfair.

Flopping down onto the floor, he watched as Akane went and picked up the kitten from the corner and put it back in the basket, closing the lid. Then she went over to the bucket of water in the corner and called his name. Curious, he went over. Was it a reward for killing the noisy ball? Pleased, Ranma stuck his head over the top and lapped up some of the water. It tasted nice. Better than the dead ball with noisy bell.

He looked up at Akane when she put her fingers in the water next to his face. He was still drinking, and it was his reward. _Mine_! Ranma-cat grabbed her fingers between his teeth softly but in warning. He made sure not to hurt her, but she should know better. Flicking her pinky and ring fingers still submerged in the water, Akane splashed a small wave up against his face.

Suddenly, observer Ranma was in control again, but now he was a she and she had Akane’s fingers lightly clasped between her teeth and Akane’s fingertips resting on her tongue. Ranko should probably be freaking out that Akane was going to clobber her for being a pervert or something, but for some reason Ranko couldn’t summon up much dismay. There was a little embarrassment for getting territorial over stupid water, but it was swamped out by the intimacy of feeling Akane’s fingers in his mouth.

Ranko wanted to circle Akane’s fingertips with her tongue, perhaps suck a little as she checked Akane’s reaction from underneath her eyelashes. But now was probably not the time. Besides, Ranko still wasn’t sure how she’d react, and Ranko didn’t want Akane hitting him and getting mad right now. Akane seemed frozen, so Ranko forced herself to slowly pull her mouth off of Akane’s fingers with a soft _pop_.

Ranko turned slowly to pretend everything was fine, though she knew both of their cheeks were flushed red, hopefully for the same reason. Picking up the teapot, she poured a quick stream of hot water over her head. As soon as she felt her breasts recede back into a manly chest, Ranma picked up the towel and wiped off the water clinging to his bangs and dripping off his ears and chin.

“So, um,” Akane’s voice broke into the awkward silence, “how do you feel?”

“Fine I guess,” Ranma replied. “Like the last few times, I was aware, but not in control. Things that are unimportant to my cat side are hard to focus on though.”

“Okay, well, just tell me what you do remember then. For starters, can you describe your actions or what objects I pulled out of the basket?” Akane asked.

Blowing out a long breath, Ranma started describing what he remembered. For a moment he hesitated to mention licking her lower back, but the strategist part of his mind told him that he could learn a lot from her reaction to that event. He made sure to be looking straight at her, speaking slowly without any stuttering, when he described rubbing up against her side, twining around her back, and licking the salt off her skin. Akane blushed beautifully, and wouldn’t meet his eyes, but her breathing also picked up a bit before she asked, “wha- what about after th- that?”

Ranma allowed himself a small smile, since she wasn’t looking anyways, and then described the banana, cup, and ball with a bell inside. He was feeling pretty confident, and every reaction and smile she had reinforced that he wasn’t actually crazy(er than normal). Ranma really was remembering things in the cat fist. Not having the cat fist at all or being in charge would be better, but just being able to remember what had happened instead of waiting for someone to tell him was huge.

“Okay Ranma, I think it is pretty obvious that you are remembering the cat fist, even if you aren’t in control. I think we need to test this one more time,” Akane said.

“But why,” Ranma whined as he sprawled onto his back. “We figured it out. I don’t need to be a stupid cat again.”

Akane scowled at him, “We need to make sure it wasn’t a fluke. Repeatability is important when testing results, Ranma. You know that. Don’t be a baby.”

Making a face, Ranma sighed gustily and resumed his kneeling position in front of Akane. He still felt tense, but admittedly not as bad as the first time. When Akane lifted the lid of the basket and the little kitten head popped out, the transition was almost seamless. Ranma let himself fall back as his cat side leapt forward. Ranma-cat padded around the dojo, teased the kitten a little bit with a game of chase, and then padded over to Akane and sprawled at her feet.

Looking adoringly up into her dark eyes, Ranma-cat purred. From his observer position, Ranma was a bit embarrassed by how blatant his cat side could be. Then, suddenly, he heard a soft, menacing voice right behind his non-corporeal shoulder hiss, “ _Found you_!”

As the voice slithered into his mind, Ranma felt fouled and polluted, as if rubbed by rotting fur and putrefying flesh. He tried to turn, to focus on it defensively, but before he could he felt a sharp pain, then as if he was being smothered, compressed and pushed aside. Something yanked sharply from the opposite direction, and suddenly he was thrown out of the cat fist without any warning.

Shaking his head sharply to push off his daze, he found himself sitting on the ground with Akane collapsed against his chest, her body bracketed by his legs and his arms clenched tightly across her back. She was blinking slowly up into his face as if confused.

“I think I forgot to eat or something. I feel a little dizzy,” Akane said softly.

Ranma had no idea what had just happened, how he’d gotten out of the cat fist, or why Akane felt dizzy. Had something attacked him and gotten Akane along the way? Then a horrible train of logic click click clicked in his brain and he figured that he must’ve pulled energy from her again, even though he’d sworn not to do that. He wanted to check on the spiritual tie between them, but he didn’t trust himself.

_Dammit_! Ranma swore silently.

Forcing his fingers to unclench from behind her back, Ranma let Akane go and eased back. “I don’t feel so hot either,” he admitted. “Let’s go inside a get a snack. I bet Kasumi will return the kitten for us.”

Ranma ignored the fact that he could see the kitten napping in a sunbeam out of the corner of his eye, and yet he didn’t even feel the slightest nudge from his cat side, only an increased heartbeat and beading sweat around his temples and the back of his neck. He’d have to meditate later and try to figure this all out, maybe demand some answers from his stupid cat side, but right now he needed to get Akane inside and something to eat. After that, he needed to get away from her for a little while, just in case.

* * *

 

A few hours later, Ranma was in his favorite meadow in the moonlit park, running through katas and trying to quiet his mind. He couldn’t even remember the stupid excuse he’d given the Tendos for why he was going out. He was too flustered. It took a long time, but finally he managed to calm down enough to achieve a light, meditative state. Finally ready, he gathered his ki and worked through the special martial arts geometry kata that allowed him to go inside himself and speak to his cat side.

For some reason, the path was longer this time. It wasn’t as easy to squeeze himself through the tunnel to reach the cave and then the clearing with the tree. When he finally got there, it was different. The tree seemed more rickety, the leaves more sparse.

“Hello?” Ranma called out, treading cautiously around the trunk of the tree.

“Can’t you tell I’m busy?” said a voice from behind him.

Jumping and spinning around, Ranma saw that it was only his feline doppelganger. Unlike the last few times, his feline features were more pronounced, with slit pupils, pointed ears topped with tufts of black hair, and sharp teeth. It should look stupid, but instead it looked natural, sleek and dangerous.

“Can’t you tell I don’t care?” Ranma sniped back. “What was that? Did you hear that voice say “Found you,” too? And what happened with Akane?”

Cat-Ranma huffed and folded his arms, “I don’t know. That’s what I’m trying to figure out. I’m protecting her the best I can, but something was slinking around and into the ties connecting us with Akane.”

“What!” exclaimed Ranma. “Well, can’t we cut it out?”

Cat-Ranma sent him a withering glare, “What a brilliant idea. Why didn’t I think of that? Except so far the only times I see it is when I’m distracted, and the places it does show up are too knotted up with us for me to just slice it out quickly.”

“Fine then, I’ll do it. Just show me where and I’ll cut it out, if you’re too scared,” Ranma sneered.

Hissing in response, Cat-Ranma said, “Don’t be an idiot. The spiritual ties are so knotted that I’d be cutting us out at the same time I was trying to get to it. I’m just as likely to excise us from Akane and leave her alone with it.”

Ranma deflated. “But, it’s gotta be after me, not Akane. Is there any chance of setting up some sort of shield for her and then cutting us lose to protect her?”

“Uh, do you know how to do that?” his cat side asked.

“Well, no, but aren’t you the expert?” Ranma replied.

“While I may know more than an idiot like you about spiritual bindings, I don’t know everything. I have no idea how to do what you are talking about. I don’t even know who would, especially when we have no information about our enemy except that it was probably searching for us and finally found us,” said cat-Ranma.

Lashing its tail back and forth he continued, “Besides, there is no guarantee that it isn’t after Akane in the first place. I’ll do my best to keep her safe, but you gotta get your head out of your butt and stop being so self-involved. Maybe if you kept a better eye on her and stuff, this would have never gotten so bad in the first place. It’s not like this is the first time something has attacked our binding to her.”

Ranma reared back as if slapped, “What the hell are you talking about?”

“Oh please,” Cat-Ranma snapped. “Can you be any more blind? You’ve been feeling watched for weeks when you access the bonds to her, but did you ever do anything about it? No, you just wallowed in how _lonely_ you were and how Akane never _plays_ with you anymore,” he mocked scathingly. “Well boo-hoo. Maybe if you grew a pair and actually talked to her, or kissed her and mated her like a real cat, or man, whatever, we wouldn’t be in this mess.”

Swallowing down his rage and humiliation at his words, Ranma forced himself to focus on what was important. “If you knew something was really wrong, why didn’t you say anything?”

“Because you listen so well to me,” he replied. “Besides, you like to stuff me down so hard that I don’t always know what you are doing until you let me out again. Plus… well, nevermind.”

“What is that supposed to mean?” Ranma demanded. He felt some bit of information floating just below the surface of his thoughts, but it took a moment for him to grasp at it. “Wait, do you spy on Akane using our ties?”

Cat-Ranma gave an enigmatic smile and drawled, “Not completely stupid then.”

Leaping forward, Ranma grabbed his feline twin by the collar and shook him, “What do you know about Akane?”

Completely unconcerned, Cat-Ranma bared his needle-sharp fangs in an unfriendly grin and said, “More than you do, that’s for sure. After all, you’ve never actually tasted her on your tongue like I have.”

Before Ranma could bury his fist into that sneering feline face, his twin disappeared from his grasp. Growling, Ranma spun around angrily, twitching his fingers in rage, almost losing control and releasing a ki ball to incinerate the entire clearing and damn the consequences to himself. Ranma finally found the damn cat up in the branches of the tree, swinging his legs insolently.

“This is my territory, Ranma. You can’t hurt me here,” he drawled.

Strangling down on the urge to rip the cat limb from limb, Ranma forced himself to breath before speaking again. It was difficult.  Being unable to hurt the bastard may or may not be true, but killing the cat wasn’t the goal here. Information was.

Ranma licked his lips and then said something guaranteed to put the conversation back on track. He could be strategic. He would be, because this was important. “If you know things about Akane that I need to know to protect her, you have to tell me,” he began, “because I have tasted her mouth once,” Ranma’s voice failed him for a moment, but he forced his lips to rasp the words despite the rebellion of his soul, “when she was dead.” Ranma met his twin’s eyes and finished, “That can never happen again, so you have to tell me what I need to know to keep her safe.”

Dropping down from out the tree, Cat-Ranma grimaced and looked away. He hesitated, flattened his ears in a tell that Ranma wished he knew how to read, and then reluctantly said, “I don’t know anything for sure. We have so many enemies and rivals that this attack could have come from almost anywhere.”

Ranma took a deep breath and then demanded, “But if anything else is happening with Akane, or has happened to Akane, you need to tell me.”

Cat-Ranma sighed wearily. “No, I don’t.”

“What,” Ranma growled, angry again.

“Look Ranma,” he said, “you want to know something, go and ask her. I’m a cat, not a spy.”

Frustrated, Ranma snapped, “Whose side are you on anyways?”

“Akane’s of course,” Cat-Ranma immediately replied. “She’s always liked me. She accepts me.”

Ranma sputtered. “But you’re a part of me! You have to do what I say, what I want.”

Cat-Ranma leaned forward and poked Ranma in the chest with a sharp claw. “Sure, I may be stuck with you, but you hate and despise me. Well the feeling is mutual, _pal_. I choose Akane’s side. Always. Who do you think it was that gave you the strength and ability to bind her and keep her alive at Jusendo? That was me. Who helped you strengthen and renew those bonds in Okinawa when you wanted it back? Me. Who gets to slink around her spirit and shore it up, who lets you know where she is? Me! Who openly shows her affection and doesn’t jerk her around? Me! So don’t act like you are the one in charge of this here, or like you have the right to demand anything of me.”

Ranma felt bruised and winded, as if he’d been punched in the solar plexus and couldn’t catch a breath.

But Cat-Ranma didn’t stop there. “You are weak and gutless, Ranma. You don’t deserve Akane. You don’t deserve me! If I wasn’t stuck with you, I’d take Akane for my own and we’d dump you out back with the rest of the garbage, to be picked up and towed away with the rest of the unwanted, _useless_ crap. If Akane wants to keep her secrets from you, that’s her right. I’m on Akane’s side, now and forever. So deal with it.”

After that pronouncement, Ranma found himself summarily ejected from the clearing. Groaning, he looked up at the mist shrouded moon and rubbed his aching side from where he must have fallen on it. _Stupid cat with its stupid secrets._ For all he knew, Akane didn’t even have any dangerous secrets, and the stupid feline was just messing with him. It was just as likely as anything else. Ranma really, truly hated cats.

He wasn’t going to let this make him back off though. Akane’s blushes earlier had not been discouragements. Ranma was going to keep pursuing her, and touching her, and maybe if he was lucky he’d even get to kiss her. Akane was going to be his. No stupid cat side was going to have more knowledge and experience with her than him.

In the meanwhile, Ranma would be extra vigilant against new enemies and would try to watch out for spiritual attacks. If he had to, maybe he’d plan a training trip away from Akane for the summer to keep her safe. There had to be someone who specialized in this kind of crap who would train him. Plus, whoever was gunning for him would hopefully leave her alone. Though just in case, he could maybe get Akane to leave town for the summer herself so she wasn’t so easily found.

Cologne might be able to help, but she had gotten kinda weird and stiff lately. The old Ghoul had stopped playing around and had issued an ultimatum: no more special training or secrets unless he immediately returned to China and married Shampoo. Maybe it had something to do with how Shampoo smelled so much like Mousse lately, but he didn’t want to make any assumptions.

And when had he started noticing how people smelled? Or that people smelled like other people? Must be the stupid cat stuff. Again. _Argh!_

Scrubbing his fingers through his hair, Ranma suppressed a scream of frustration and decided to go on a midnight run around the city to tire himself out so he could actually sleep.


	26. Burnt Lace and Corkscrew Curls

Lately, Akane had been having strange dizzy spells and occasionally getting faint for no reason that she could figure out. It hadn’t happened a lot, but it had happened often enough the last few months that she was starting to get worried. What if it had something to do with the possible demon taint she’d picked up? Akane was scared and didn’t want to think about it. But when she had a sudden case of vertigo during volleyball practice and almost got hit in the head, she decided it was time to stop avoiding things.

Despite the monk Sachi’s promise to look into things and get back to her, Akane was losing confidence. From their one phone call, it looked like the woman was partying her way through every frat house in Japan, not investigating demon possession to help out Akane. Maybe it was time for Akane to stop ignoring her problems and confront them head on. Maybe it was time for her to ask for help from someone else.

Gearing up her courage, and suppressing her fear, Akane had left volleyball practice early after promising the coach to go straight to her doctor’s for a check-up. Akane had meant to keep that promise too. She was going to tell Dr. Tofu everything this time. Dr. Tofu was so smart. Maybe he’d know how to help her after all.

On her way there, however, she’d gotten side-tracked. Coming towards her down the street was a couple, and the boy looked like Ranma. Her stomach flipped. For a second she had almost convinced herself that it was just a look-alike, because he was wearing a tacky Hawaiian print shirt and had just curled his arm around some bimbo’s waist. Plus, the man’s face was partially obscured by the elaborate hairdo worn by the girl. Akane didn’t know what to call it, just that it was pretty extreme for a walk down the street. Even when she’d had long hair, Akane could never get it to do anything fancy. It hadn’t wanted to hold a curl more than ten minutes, even with half a can of product in it.

Akane laughed at herself, and half-wished that Ranma was there to give her moral support for her upcoming conversation. They’d gotten closer lately, especially with their work on the cat fist. They’d even started touching each other more and sending each other warm glances. Ranma hadn’t said anything, but a giddy part of Akane thought that it couldn’t be much longer before they ended up breaking the tension with a kiss, and from there it would be exponentially easier to have a conversation about the future. Their future together.

Such thoughts had her almost smiling when the man looked up straight into her eyes and froze in terror. She knew that expression, had memorized that face, and there was no doubt that it was Ranma. _It really was Ranma!_

Not only that, but this was a Ranma who knew he’d done something that would make her angry. He probably expected her to get violent, but after struggling with the anxiety and fear over coming clean with Dr. Tofu, and after so many self-help books, her shock didn’t turn into violence and anger. Plus, she’d just been thinking of _kissing_ him. All she could muster up was an acute feeling of hurt and betrayal.

Akane couldn’t deal with this right now. She couldn’t. Turning on her heel, she strode away as fast as she could.

Once home, she’d retreated up to her bedroom. Although the house was thankfully quiet, that didn’t guarantee no one was home, so she made sure to not pound up the stairs. It wasn’t until she’d thrown her book bag onto her bedroom floor that she remembered her resolution to go and talk to Dr. Tofu. _Well, that’ll just have to happen later_ , she dismissed. Akane had lost the courage and strength needed for such a discussion.

Stripping off her gym clothes, which hadn’t even had a chance to get sweaty, Akane opened up her closet. She needed something comforting, like an old t-shirt worn soft with washing and a baggy pair of sweats. Digging around in the mound of clothes, hangers, and purses laying on the floor her closet, Akane finally found what she was looking for.

As she hauled the shirt over her head and hopped into the sweats, she tripped on a shirt, stumbled to her knees, and banged her head against the back wall. Swearing underneath her breath, Akane rubbed her aching forehead. Then she started stuffing everything back into the closet. As she worked, she knocked into a dirty box stuffed into the corner. Distracted by her aching head and the mess, it took her a second to identify it. 

Hands trembling slightly, Akane dragged the box out into the open and slowly opened the lid. A hiccupping breath escaped her as she gently pulled out a charred scrap of dirty lace. It was a remnant of her wedding dress from the failed marriage attempt right after Jusendo.  It hit her all at once then, the idea that she could have (should have?) been married by now. 

Soot blackened the center of the lace rag in a ragged thunderbolt pattern. The left side was so burnt it crackled when she moved her hand, causing bits of black powder to flake off onto the floor. If she hadn’t known it had started out as pure white, she never would have guessed from the dingy grey tinge of the remaining fabric.  Glancing quickly over her shoulder at the calendar on the wall, she did a mental calculation. 

About nine months.

It had been nine months since that final failed wedding to Ranma. They’d grown during that time, and were closer in some ways now than before, better friends and better at avoiding arguments.  Those nine months had also contained at least twenty-five martial arts challenges, a Ki blast that had necessitated the re-landscaping of the back yard, and three kidnapping attempts (including her and Ranko’s kidnapping from the martial arts geometry shrine, the disappearance of Mousse, and, strangely enough, Gosunkugi).

Yes, they had been full months, but they hadn’t contained the one thing she had desperately hoped for – a resolution to Ranma’s fiancée dilemma and the question of whether he loved her or not.  She’d tried to tentatively bring up their relationship a few of times, but Ranma didn’t seem to want to discuss it. Every time she brought it up he managed to run away or change the subject. 

The last time she’d tried a few months ago, he’d gotten this strange look in his eye and blurted out something confusing and insulting. It had made her so mad (and hurt so badly) that for a moment she couldn’t catch her breath.  Before Akane knew it she had reared back and swung her book bag so hard at his head that the bag almost ripped in two.  The blow smacked Ranma square in his treacherous mouth, knocking him over the fence and into the canal.  Akane hadn’t stayed around to see if he woke up before drowning or not. After that, she hadn’t tried to talk to him about her feelings or their future again. Besides, she’d been doing so well at not hitting him when she got angry, and then he’d gone and ruined her winning streak.

Yet if they hadn’t been interrupted nine months ago, Akane would be married right now.  She would be secure in her place in Ranma’s affections, wouldn’t she? He would have said he loved her, right?

Looking at the dingy lace in her hands, Akane realized with astonishment that if she had gotten married nine months ago, she might have gotten pregnant and had a baby already.  She could be a mother right now. An image of a family portrait popped into her head- Ranma with his arms wrapped affectionately around Akane’s shoulders as they both grinned lovingly down at a little girl with big brown eyes.

This final image hit her like a body blow, causing Akane to gasp and double over.  Tears began to trickle from her eyes, faster and faster.  She could see them beading on her nose and dripping off her chin like a faucet with a broken seal.  Taking a shaky breath, Akane tried to still her trembling lips. She was sick of crying over her relationship with Ranma. Sick of it! This is just PMS, she told herself, calm down.

Unwinding her arms from where they clutched her waist, Akane put her hands flat against the floor to push herself up.  This action ground the burnt lace painfully between her palm and the floor.  Snatching her hand back, Akane stared at the pile of sooty threads and black flakes.  Destroyed.  Nothing but sooty ashes remained of her dreams of the future.  She had made herself vulnerable for him, been ready to give herself and her dreams to him, and he had slapped her gift away.

Overwhelmed, Akane burst into gulping sobs. Putting a hand over her mouth, she realized that her bedroom door gaped open. Someone could walk in any minute and see her crying over the ash pile that was once her soot-stained scrap of wedding lace. She was horrified at the thought of discovery.  Yet her tears wouldn’t stop.

Akane backed quickly into the closet and closed the doors.  Stuffing a shirt into her mouth, she tried to muffle her violent sobs.  Tears and saliva quickly soaked the cloth. 

_Calm down, idiot, calm down,_ she chanted to herself as she rocked back and forth in the dark and humid closet. _One dream might be dead, but you can make new ones._ _Besides, you’re not ready to have a baby. And you just saw that jerk walking out with another girl, remember?_  Finally, slowly, her tears stopped and she brought her breathing under control.  Letting out a couple of hiccupping sighs, she grabbed a skirt off the floor and tried to wipe her face dry. 

That day, carefully dressed in her white wedding dress, all she had been thinking of was having Ranma’s love and finally being his chosen fiancée. Of having the right to stand by his side and go where he went no matter what the trouble. He would be her husband, and she would be his wife, and things would be perfect because they would tackle things together from that day forward forever.

Pregnancy had never even crossed her mind.  She was still in high school! Neither of them was mature enough to be parents for a baby.  And how would they afford it?  The Tendos could barely afford to feed Genma and Ranma and pay for all of the repairs their fights caused, much less the extra cost of a baby!

Last year, a girl named Mami in Nibiki’s class had abruptly disappeared from school because she’d gotten pregnant.  Her parents had kicked her out, so the girl had gone to live with a cousin in another town.  Her boyfriend had denied responsibility, abandoned her, and gone off to college on an athletic scholarship.  His future was supposedly very bright.  No one talked about Mami’s future as a single mother without a high school diploma. 

For a few days, that story had scared all of the girls in school.  It had scared Akane.  She wanted to be a mother someday, but not right now when she was still in high school. There would always be the dojo to support her, but how would she teach classes if she was pregnant?  How would she know how to do the taxes and accounting if she didn’t finish high school and go to college? Dr. Tofu only had so much spare time to teach her administrative stuff, and that wasn’t his specialty anyways. That’s why he kept hiring office managers.

Ranma would never abandon her if she was pregnant, but then again he might not define a training trip as abandonment.  Not with his parents and the way he was raised. Besides, what if he left to train and never came back?  On a training trip he could be killed, or drugged into forgetting her, or even seduced by some other woman and never want to come back.

Plus, even if he did stick around, did Ranma even know how to operate a dojo?  Could he teach? He was so good at learning new techniques that he didn’t seem to have much patience for people who were slower learners than he was, like herself. How would he bring in students to the dojo and support their family if he didn’t know how to teach beginners?  Part-timers were the dojo’s bread and butter, yet Ranma sometimes seemed to look down on people like that for not being serious enough about the art.  And if he wouldn’t spar seriously with their female students, those students would take their money somewhere else.  Akane didn’t want to have to run the dojo all by herself. 

There were so many things she and Ranma needed to work out, but they couldn’t start until they could agree that they really were going to get married.  How was it that no one else in the family seemed to be worried about this, about what a marriage entailed beyond just two people legally bound together?  Didn’t they care?

No one had talked to her of birth control, or even of what to expect on her wedding night either.  Akane had some ideas, but there were other things she still had questions about. She might have been too angry or uncomfortable to even listen, but no one had even tried.  Then again, maybe they wanted her to get pregnant right away. It would be another way to cement the alliance between their families and prove Ranma’s manliness to his mother. But what about Akane and her feelings? What about her health and her body and her plans? She no longer had a mother to advocate for those.

Would Ranma have been prepared…?  Considering the way he was raised and how he sometimes acted around girls, she’d be surprised if he even knew what a condom was.  _Did he even realize how ignorant he was about some things?_ she thought scathingly.

A minute later, another question popped into her head, _did she_? _Did she realize how ignorant_ she _was?_ The thought sobered her. 

Akane had always wanted to wait for marriage before having sex, and before Ranma that date had seemed so far off.  So she’d been lazy and let herself be embarrassed, not paying attention to that type of stuff.  When she started to realize that other girls, even her own sister Nabiki, were making sexual references she didn’t understand, it felt like it was too late to ask.  She didn’t want to look stupid or be teased. Plus, with her crush on Dr. Tofu, her doctor was the last person she could ask for advice.  So she had decided not to worry about it.

Her family loved her, and Ranma did his best to protect her during fights, but no one could save her from her own ignorance. 

She’d been acting like a child, saying she wanted to be treated like an adult and yet not doing anything to prepare to be that adult. Not once had she tried to educate herself about her body, about her options.  _Even with all of those boys attacking me in front of the school, and sometimes even on the way home, all I’d do was train a little harder in the dojo and run a few extra miles in the mornings._   She was going to have to grow up and start protecting herself with something more than just her fists.

How many times had their fathers tried to force them into marriage?  How many times had she been kidnapped by strange men?  Hadn’t she almost been raped in Okinawa? 

Counting back in her mind, Akane realized that it had been several months since that trauma. _Has it really be that long? Huh, and I still haven’t…_ Akane’s blood ran cold as she realized, _I still haven’t had my period yet_.

Skipping your period once because of stress was understandable, even twice maybe, but three times or more? Strangling down hard on her panic and hysteria, Akane forced herself to calm down as much as possible. If she didn’t lock down on this now, she’d start wailing uncontrollably and get the whole house running into her room. That was the last thing she needed right now.

In fact, she refused to believe she was pregnant. There had to be another explanation. She would go to the women’s clinic downtown and get tested, just in case, but the test would be negative, and they’d give her a perfectly reasonable explanation for skipping so many times. While she was there, she could finally ask a nurse all of the questions she had about birth control and sex for future reference.

Another disturbing thought struck her. She remembered that when they’d been kidnapped last time, an unconscious Ranko had almost gotten raped too. If Ranko hadn’t been wearing that new puzzle belt, Akane might have woken up to an even worse scenario. 

Did Ranma even know that as a she, he was sometimes vulnerable?  As a man he had probably never even considered the threat of rape.  _Someone needs to make sure he knows about birth control._ The thought made Akane queasy.

_Additionally, with the way so many girls throw themselves at him, and into his bed, he should know how to protect someone else from getting pregnant and how to protect himself from a STD. Just in case he ever actually…with someone not… me._

After all, she had just seen him snuggled up on the street with some girl she’d never even met before. Akane struggled with the rampant jealousy, anger, and hurt these thoughts provoked.  A hiccupping breath finally broke her away from this self-destructive spiral of feelings. Unclenching her fists, she tried to shake the tension from her wrists and hands. 

_But good. At least she had a plan._

More and more, it felt like a wedding was never going to happen between them.  She wanted it, at least when he wasn’t being a jerk, but their engagement had been dragging on for over two years and multiple wedding attempts by their fathers.  He would protest that he didn’t want to marry her and that she was an uncute tomboy, but then he kept living with them even after discovering his mother and would act jealous when any other boy showed interest in her. He’d even started touching her and leaning against her casually. Lately, she would have sworn that he was actively flirting with her even. She’d even been thinking of kissing him.

But he still wouldn’t say anything concrete! Instead of resolving anything, Ranma kept avoiding the issue.  And more and more girls kept popping up to slobber all over him.  Akane was tired of having her heart yanked back and forth. 

Nevertheless, these years had forged a bond between them that nothing could ever break. But perhaps… perhaps that bond was destined to remain friendship. Akane took a deep, painful breath. Therefore, as Ranma’s friend, she had a duty to both his girl- and boy-side to make sure he was aware of his options.  Just in case.

Letting loose an incredulous snort, a surprised Akane put fingers to lips curving in amusement.  Ranma would never sit still for a sex-ed lesson.  She’d have to tie him down and hit him with paralysis powder, and that still might not be enough to keep him from running away in horror.  Besides which, she wasn’t sure she’d be able to do it herself. The image of her own beet-red face stuttering through an explanation, while a bug-eyed Ranma writhed away in horror, flashed into her mind. She snorted again and dissolved into slightly hysterical giggles.

Finally, emotionally spent, Akane wiped her runny nose on another spare t-shirt. She’d start with educating herself and figure out the Ranma part later, she decided. Tomorrow afternoon she’d sneak off and look up the location of the nearest women’s clinic. Decided, Akane opened the closet door and crawled out. 

Out of the corner of her eye she saw something move.  Springing to her feet, she looked around the room defensively. Then she giggled at herself.  It was just her curtain swaying back and forth.  Akane sighed. Thankfully, no one had noticed her breakdown.

After closing the bedroom door firmly, she carefully scraped up the pile of wedding dress ashes back into the box and returned it to her closet. Unable to find the energy to do anything else, she laid down on top of her bed for a nap. Curled on her side, Akane threw one arm over her eyes to block the sun and quickly fell asleep.

* * *

 

Over the next few weeks after Ranma had tested out the cat fist with Akane, nothing dangerous had popped up. Ranma stayed vigilant, but no big baddie with spiritual powers came leaping out to attack him, and no more creepy voices sounded in his head either. He’d taken to sticking even closer to Akane than usual, just in case, but no one unusual jumped out to attack either of them. At least, no one who could parasitize spiritual ties and seemed homicidal.

As he sat on the veranda and stared sightlessly at the ice-rimmed pond in the backyard, he admitted that the signal from his spiritual tie with Akane had maybe gotten a bit weaker lately. However, he’d also done little to reinforce it or investigate. _Why_? He asked himself. _Because you’re avoiding talking with your cat side._

He wasn’t sulking! It was just, well, since the only things he wanted to say to the traitor were four-letter words, there didn’t seem to be any point. He’d still had a few cat fist dreams in the preceding weeks, which may or may not have been an attempt at reconciliation, but Ranma didn’t care. That darn cat was a traitor.

Besides, he was Ranma Saotome. He wouldn’t be defeated by some stupid nebulous enemy with spiritual powers who happened to notice his ties with Akane. Besides, it seemed like this enemy could only sense the ties, if Ranma understood the explanation correctly. That sucked, but didn’t seem too dangerous. Considering that the cat claimed to be the one responsible for making those ties, he’d probably screwed up somehow and that was why some enemy was sensing them in the first place. Well Ranma would kick that guy’s butt without the cat fist, and then they’d see who was boss.

On the plus side, he’d distracted himself by having some fun with a few challengers lately. He’d particularly enjoyed Martial Arts Ice Sculpting. Once he got the trick of it, it wasn’t particularly hard. Also, it had been kinda fun pretending to be an artist for the day, using just his hands and Ki to sculpt something beautiful and ephemeral. Of course, he’d go to his grave before he’d ever admit something so girly out loud.

Things were going better with Akane too, no matter what his cat side might say. Admittedly, Ranma hadn’t been able to admit anything about his feelings to her yet, or get her to say anything like if she loved and adored him. And he still found himself insulting her when he hadn’t intended to sometimes. But they were totally flirting now, he’d swear to it! Plus, she was even more open to him invading her personal space to rest a hand on her arm, or lean against her legs, or even just hover nearby and inhale the perfume of her skin surreptitiously.  _Oh yeah, she definitely liked him._ He just had to figure out how deep that liking went.

Although… there had been a bit of a setback in his campaign to win her affections. Last week, Akane was supposed to be in volleyball practice all afternoon. It was on her calendar and they’d talked about it at breakfast and everything!

So Ranma had decided to use the time she was busy to focus on his most recent challenger. He needed to get the secret of Martial Arts Hair Dressing, and his only source was the ditsy apprentice. Luckily, his challenger’s apprentice totally had a crush on him and kept asking him out every time her master’s back was turned. She flirted with him at every opportunity and kept trying to trick him into going on a date with her. Considering his experience with tricky girls, she was almost painfully clumsy in her traps. Of course she had a devoted shop-boy following her around, but she didn’t seem to care. Girls were weird like that.

However, despite his best efforts, Ranma had stalled on how to get curls to stay curly in humid weather, and how to keep sweeping up-dos up without any products like gel or hairspray. His challenger could drill holes with her curls, they were so firm, yet she maintained that no chemicals were involved, just talent.  There had to be a trick to the technique that he was missing.

Ranma was at his wits end with limp hair, and was getting nowhere despite his best efforts. So, gritting his teeth and pasting on a fake smile, Ranma had met with the girl. She flat out told him that if he took her on a date, flirted with her, and treated her right, she’d give him the secret. In his defense, Ranma had made it clear that she got one date and one date only. But he had gone along with her demand to wear a Hawaiian print shirt and did his best to be charming. He’d even let her wrap her arms around his body and smash her tissue-filled bosom against his arm (her chest made a _crinkle_ sound every time she shifted against him). During their date, Ranma had even bought her three different treats and a new hairclip that she, “ _just have to have now, ohmigosh!”_

But even almost broke and sporting a raging headache from the shrill sound of her voice, things were still going according to plan. Because, after the tenth time Ranma complimented her hair (and he was starting to repeat himself, seriously), she leaned into him and _finally_ whispered the secret in his ear, though she did preface it with the demeaning, “Oh, you’ve been such a good little boy, so I guess I’ll tell you the secret now.” Nevertheless, solving the technique totally made up for the way his skin was crawling where she touched him and the rash starting up on his arm from her hideous perfume.  He’d even gotten orange smudges on his shoulder from where her makeup had rubbed off.

Nevertheless, Ranma had the secret to the Martial Arts Hair Dressing technique!

Since she couldn’t see him anyways from where she’d forced her head against his shoulder despite his discouragement, Ranma let himself smirk and sigh in relief. Then he began planning on how to end the date as quickly as possible. As he wrapped his arm around her waist to forcefully unplaster her steely grip from his body, he walked around a group of chattering office ladies and looked up. Then he froze in terror.

Akane stood on the street directly in front of him. NOT IN VOLLEYBALL PRACTICE. _Here_ , looking at him snuggling up with a floozy hairdresser he’d never told her about.

Ranma expected her to race forward and slap him at any second. He braced for pain. Instead, what he got was even worse. Akane didn’t attack him. She just turned on her heel and left quickly. However, right before she turned, Ranma saw an expression of _hurt_ flare across her face.

He’d rather have been slapped.

It took Ranma until after dinner to get her alone so he could explain. It was a just a misunderstanding! Akane still hadn’t hit him. She’d listened to his explanation, though she seemed distracted and her replies were short and unhelpful. She had to be mad. He wished she would just tell him what he’d specifically done wrong and what she wanted him to do to make it right. Was Akane jealous, did she think his actions had been too underhanded, or was it something else altogether? Ranma had no idea. He couldn’t read her mind!

Several days had passed since the _incident_ , and Ranma had won that challenge, but things were still a bit tense between them. Akane wasn’t as open to his random touches or hovering as she had been. There was also some avoiding going on, he was sure of it.

The other day after school he was waiting for her and it was only luck that let him see her exit out a different door and disappear into the subway. Unfortunately, by the time he got over there she’d disappeared into the crowd. He’d tried to ask her about it, but she had immediately changed the subject and then turned to Ranma’s pops and asked his advice on running a dojo. As if his pops knew anything about that, or as if she actually respected his pops opinions when she knew just as well as the rest of them that Pops was an idiot about just about everything.

Akane was just plain acting _weird_. Ranma was hoping that if he just kept trying, she’d eventually forget about it and forgive him for making her mad or sad or whatever. He just wanted Akane to go back to normal.

It wasn’t like this was the first time he’d screwed up or that she’d seen him with another girl. Why did she have to punish him with the stupid cold shoulder for so long? Normally she’d get over it pretty quickly. He realized she was upset with him, but he’d apologized and everything, _geeze_!

When his Pops snuck up and flipped Ranma over his shoulder into the icy pond outside, Ranma forced himself to stop fussing about Akane and focus on revenging himself. Or herself now, whatever. Pops was dead meat.

 


	27. Two Clinic Conversations

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A lot of stuff is going to start happening in the next few chapters, so brace yourself for a bumpy ride. And thank you for those people putting off sleep to read my updates! Also, if you are old enough to read this fic, you are old enough to know the stuff in this chapter.

Despite her resolution to take more responsibility for herself, and to get herself checked out, it took Akane several days to screw up the courage to do something about it. She realized that she might have also jumped to the wrong conclusion about Ranma, but he’d still hurt her feelings and she had more dire things to worry about right now. Her relationship with Ranma could wait.

Going to a phone book, she’d looked up directions to a women’s clinic downtown.  There were two.  However, Akane couldn’t bring herself to go somewhere called the Crisis Pregnancy Center. Just the name made her feel sick. The other number was for the generically named Nerima Women’s Clinic.  That sounded promising. She knew the neighborhood, so the building wouldn’t be hard to find. 

After getting over her embarrassment, the biggest problem actually seemed to be ditching Ranma.   How had she not noticed that they were together _all the time_ now? Even when she was giving him the cold shoulder, he hovered nearby or ate lunch at her table still. Sure, he had his daily workouts, but those happened in the mornings and evenings when she was already at home.  He rarely hung out with other people without her, and when he did he’d tell her about it in a half-cocky, half-apologetic tone. 

Looking back, she realized that she had somehow gotten into the habit of always telling him her schedule too.  Sometimes he’d even remind her that she needed to leave or she’d be late, like her volleyball practice last week.  Finally she’d decided that she was overthinking it, and had simply snuck out a side door after school and darted over to the subway.

 However, once she reached the street with the Nerima Women’s Clinic, she ran into another problem. Her old friend Miaka from school was sitting in a café in direct line of sight to the clinic entrance. Akane hadn’t talked to Miaka for months, not since that strange conversation in the train station on her way to Okinawa with Ranma. What if Miaka saw her going in and then figured out why? What if she told people at school and then everyone started gossiping about Akane being pregnant or a slut or something? Akane didn’t want anyone to know about this. That was the whole point of sneaking off by herself to a clinic.

Akane dawdled around the block, pretending to window shop while she nervously waited for Miaka to leave. But the girl didn’t budge. She just nursed her cup of tea and continued working on her crossword puzzle. Finally, Akane couldn’t take the tension anymore.  A large part of her wanted to just slink away and go back home. But she’d already gone back on her resolution to talk to Dr. Tofu. If she backed out on this too, she might never get up the courage to sneak away and come back.

_Be adult about this, Akane,_ she told herself.

Taking a deep breath for courage, and looking neither left nor right, Akane set her sights on the entrance to the clinic. Then she strode straight for it. Clammy hands grasped the handle and slipped a little as she pulled it open, but her step didn’t falter as she walked confidently inside.

The receptionist took her name and some basic details, and with almost no wait ushered her into an examination room. Before Akane could work herself into too much of a nervous tizzy or twist her fingers off, a competent looking woman in her 40s knocked on the door. “Hello Akane, my name is Nurse Nishida. Can I come in?” After Akane’s agreement, she came in, shut the door, and sat down.

Then she looked Akane in the eye and smiled kindly. “Thank you for being brave enough to come in to talk to me today. Before we start, I want you to know that this is a safe place. We can talk about anything and I promise I won’t judge you. I’m just here to give you information and to help you out. Everything we discuss here will remain private unless we need to bring in some extra help because you are in danger, alright?”

Relaxing at the nurse’s words, Akane nodded her head in acknowledgement.

“Good,” the nurse said with another encouraging smile. “Now, why don’t you tell me about yourself and about how I can help you today?”

“Well I,” Akane had to stop and clear her throat to get the words out, but she was determined to tell her story now and to get some answers. “I’m a senior in high school. My family owns a dojo so I also do a lot of martial arts. My fia-, I mean,” she stumbled for a moment but forced herself to keep going, “my friend and I went down to Okinawa last fall during break to study a new technique at a monastery down there. During our trip, we were kidnapped and knocked out by drugs.”

The nurse’s face creased in sympathy, “That’s horrible.”

Akane shrugged. “Actually, getting kidnapped was annoying but not that weird. I’ve been kidnapped a lot in the last few years because of all of the martial artists I hang out with.  I’m kind of used to it, sadly, but that’s my life.”

The nurse looked surprised, but not horrified or completely shocked. She also didn’t interrupt with any more condolences. They were probably used to hearing a lot of crazy things in this place.

“So anyways,” Akane continued, “the bad part was when I woke up. There was…,” her voice trailed off and she had to swallow. The nurse got up, took out a plastic cup, and filled it with cold water from the sink. She also pushed a box of tissues closer on the table. Akane took a sip of water and forced herself to speak, to go back to that memory.  She focused on a dent in the wallpaper and continued her story.

“I was tied up and there were two men talking about ra- raping me and my friend, who was still knocked out. One of the men was kneeling between my legs. My skirt was pushed up to my waist and I noticed later that my underwear was missing. But the guy hadn’t gotten his pants off all the way. I managed to fight him and his friend off and knock them unconscious. Then I got my friend and dragged us out of there,” Akane finished.

Then she turned to Nurse Nishida, “He still had his pants mostly on, I swear! I thought I’d gotten us out before anything had happened, but I haven’t had my period since, and it’s been almost four months. Plus I’ve sometimes been getting unexpectedly dizzy and tired the last few months. I’m afraid that maybe something did happen. I don’t want my family or my fiancé to know.” Akane felt a tear trickled down from her eye and swiped at it irritably. She was strong, darn it. She would get through this. “I’ve never had sex or done anything with anybody. Is there any way you can check to make sure I’m still a virgin?”

Nurse Nishida leaned forward and handed Akane a tissue. “We can definitely give you a full examination and try to figure out why your body is behaving unusually. We will help you get to the bottom of this the best we can. There is a chance you might be pregnant, based on your symptoms, but we will check for that first thing and then discuss your options. Just keep in mind that you aren’t alone anymore. We are here to help you. First, we’re going to need to get a urine sample and to do a physical exam, including a pelvic exam with your permission.”

At Akane’s nod, she then added, “I do have to tell you though, that the idea that doctors can examine a woman and tell if they’ve had sex or not is a myth.”

“What about a hymen and bleeding and stuff?” Akane asked with red cheeks.

“Well,” she explained as she pulled an anatomical picture off a nearby shelf, “as you can see, this is the female reproductive system.” The nurse explained the different parts and then said, “The hymen is a piece of tissue that would be right here. It has an opening that can be any size and the tissue itself can be thick or thin. The hymen is also stretchy. Sometimes it tears and bleeds a little during a woman’s first sexual experience, which is where the misunderstandings about it come from, but other times it gets torn merely by active exercise, which is pretty likely for you considering your martial arts training. If a woman is very relaxed and lubricated during sexual intercourse, the hymen might also simply stretch instead of breaking, leaving it intact even though she’s had sex. Some woman bleed a little bit the first time they have sexual intercourse, some spot for several weeks after becoming sexually active, and some never bleed after intercourse at all. Just because you do or don’t have a hymen, or do or do not bleed doesn’t indicate if a woman is a virgin. Does that make sense, or do you have any other questions?”

Akane swallowed and shook her head, unable to quench the flames in her cheeks.

“Well if you do, feel free to ask at any time,” the nurse said. “I need you to take this cup to the bathroom and get us a urine sample. You can leave it in the little window with the door in the bathroom. They come back here and change into this paper gown. I’ll come back and give you an exam and take a vaginal swab to test for sexually transmitted diseases, just in case. You’ll have to wait for just a few more minutes for the basic results, and then we’ll have another discussion.”

Akane was just grateful that she’d have her answers soon. After the exam, another nurse stopped in and took a little bit of blood as well, then she left again. Finally, after reading through several banal articles in a teen magazine, Nurse Nishida came back into the room. She sat down, placed her hands on her knees, and leaned forward.

“Well Akane, first things first. The pregnancy test came back negative. You are _not_ pregnant,” she said.

An inadvertent sob of relief escaped Akane’s throat, and she had to cover her face with her hands for a moment to force back more. She was so glad, so so glad.

Nurse Nishida continued, “As I explained before, we can’t determine if you were physically raped last fall or not, especially after so much time has passed, but the good news is that the examination and the quick tests we ran showed no evidence of any problems or sexually transmitted diseases. We’re going to send some samples off to be tested just in case we missed anything. Here’s a number you can call for the results in 10-12 days,” she explained as she passed Akane a card.

“As for your dizzy spells,” the nurse continued, “that could be due to vitamin and mineral deficiencies, which we did detect some of in your urine. I’m going to give you some samples of some vitamins. When they run out, you can come back for more or you can buy some over-the-counter vitamins instead. Your problem could be as simple as a nutrient imbalance and the lingering stress of the event. However, there could also be a more serious cause. I want to strongly encourage you to follow up on your symptoms with a doctor who can run some more complex tests. Would you be comfortable discussing this with your normal doctor, or would you like me to refer you to someone else?”

Knowing she wasn’t pregnant made Akane a lot less concerned about the occasional dizzy bout. But just having it be dizziness meant she could mention it next time she saw Dr. Tofu without worrying about embarrassing conversations. “I can bring it up with my doctor,” Akane answered.

“What you went through, Akane, was a traumatic event. I wouldn’t be surprised if you’ve been having nightmares and trouble sleeping too. Maybe even some other problems. I think that talking to a professional counselor could help you out a lot,” the nurse said.

Akane sighed and shifted uncomfortably. “I-I don’t know if I’m ready to talk about it yet. Especially not with a stranger.”

“The decision is ultimately yours, but a lot of women have found healing and comfort from talking to a counselor or with a support group. I’m going to give you a card for someone I recommend if you change your mind, alright?” The nurse wrote something down on a card and then passed it to Akane. “If you aren’t ready to talk to a professional, you might think about trying to talk to one of your loved ones. Perhaps a mother,  grandmother, sibling, or best friend would be someone you’d feel comfortable confiding in. Bad experiences are sometimes like infections that need to be lanced to heal. They need to be treated or else they can spread their harm to other areas. You are also always welcome to come back here to talk to me or one of the other nurses if you need to.”

Akane gave her a trembling smile and thanked her for her concern. She would have to think about who she could talk to about this. It was a big, scary decision, but maybe it would make her feel better. Of course, she’d have to figure out how to leave all the stuff about possible demon possessions out of the conversation.

They discussed a few more things about her health, and then the nurse asked if Akane had any other questions. Part of her wanted to just leave and put this whole thing out of her mind and never think about it again, but she’d promised herself to get information while she was here too. For herself, and for both Ranma _and_ Ranko.

Before her embarrassment could stop her, Akane blurted out in one breath, “I was hoping to get some sex-ed and information on what certain things mean and on how not to get pregnant for the future, if you had the time.”

Although her eyes might be popping out of her head and her ears burning, Akane made sure to pay attention. She also forced herself to interrupt and ask questions whenever she was confused. Armed now with a head full of buzzing facts, and a bag full of pamphlets to force on Ranma, she finally felt ready to leave.

However, as she walked down the hall towards the waiting room and the exit, her attention was grabbed by the sound of sobs coming from an open door. The girl looked up just as Akane passed by, and then the door closed. It had only been a few seconds, but Akane had clearly recognized the face as Miaka’s. As Akane slowly made her way home, she tried not to wonder about why Miaka had been there and just what news had caused the girl to cry.

* * *

 

A couple of days later, Akane was debating on whether or not to finally forgive Ranma and stop giving him the cold shoulder. It was a gorgeous Saturday morning, with sun streaming into the dining room and hinting at the end of winter. Such good weather made it hard to stay mad. Besides, he seemed genuinely sorry for hurting her feelings and she was beginning to feel a bit petty.

Also, they had a history test coming up next week.  Ranma probably needed to borrow her book again. He’d fallen asleep in class a couple of times last week too, so he could probably use her notes and some tutoring. She should help him out.

Plus, he was moping adorably. It was totally unfair. He kept sending her pitiful hangdog looks from underneath those unfairly long eyelashes. He reminded her of a dog expecting to be kicked but wanting to snuggle up to his master’s leg anyways. Combined with that pouting lip that the naughty part of her wanted to lick despite her best intentions to stay stern, she couldn’t help but give in.

“Hey Ranma,” she said as casually as possible into the uncomfortable silence.

“Yeah?” he answered eagerly.

“So I have to work at Dr. Tofu’s this morning for a few hours, but I was thinking that maybe we could hang out this afternoon, if you don’t have anything better to do? I could show you those variations I figured out by combining Martial Arts Shadow Puppetry and Martial Arts Gymnastics, if you want?” Akane offered hesitantly.

Ranma beamed a smile back at her. “Sure, that’d be great! Ukyo asked me to swing by for lunch, since I haven’t seen her in a while. You could meet me at Ucchan’s after work and eat with us. Then the two of us could come back here or go to the park to practice.”

“Sounds good,” Akane answered with her own small smile. Although Ukyo might not be so happy to have Akane tagging along, Akane couldn’t find it in herself to care. Besides, it made her feel warm inside when Ranma wanted her around, especially when hanging around the other girls.

Akane liked Ukyo, but she didn’t trust her where Ranma was concerned. Or rather, she trusted Ukyo to act exactly the way she always had, which was to be irrational and violent about her claim on Ranma and willing to do underhanded things to try to get Ranma’s attention and force his love. She wasn’t as bad as Shampoo, but Akane still wouldn’t forgive or forget Ukyo’s part in sabotaging a multitude of potentially romantic moments between Ranma and Akane.

The rest of breakfast passed in a pleasant blur by chatting casually and mending fences with Ranma. However, right as she was winding her scarf around her neck for the walk to Dr. Tofu’s, the phone rang.  Akane hastily toed off her shoes and answered, “Hello, Tendo Residence.”

“Hello, I’m looking for Akane Tendo,” said a slightly familiar female voice.

For some reason, Akane felt a burst of butterflies in her stomach, but she tried to ignore the feeling and place where she’d heard the voice before. “This is Akane, how can I help you?”

“Akane, good,” said the slightly husky voice, “this is Mariko Sato from the Martial Arts Geometry Monastery in Okinawa.” Akane’s stomach turned over unpleasantly, but she forced herself not to interrupt. “I was wondering if our Sachi is there by chance, or if you’ve spoken to her recently?”

Akane had a bad feeling about this. “Well, I haven’t seen her since I left the Monastery, but she did call me a couple of months ago.” Saying it out loud made her realize once again how long this situation had been dragging on. “She’d gotten arrested at a college frat party for some… bad behavior, but was just going to pay her fine and get out when she called me. After that, she planned on going to some temple up north with a library of some sort. I don’t remember her mentioning any specific places or names though, sorry. She did promise to visit this summer one way or another. Why, is something wrong?”

“Not, not exactly,” Mariko replied. “It’s just that usually she calls us pretty regularly, almost weekly if not more often, and we haven’t heard from her in over a month either. There’ve been some weird things going on around Iriomote Island lately too. Plus, when Sachi first left, she hadn’t intended on being gone for more than six or seven weeks, and during her last few phone calls she seemed a bit strange…,” Her voice trailed off, and the female monk paused for a moment, allowing the silence to stretch out uneasily. Then Mariko cleared her throat. “Well, she’s an adult and I’m sure she’s fine. I just thought I’d touch base with you to see what you knew.”

Akane’s muscles were tight and she felt the start of a tension headache. “If there is anything I can do to help, please let me know. If she contacts me again, I’ll make sure to tell her to call you.”

“I appreciate that, Akane. We’ll look into both the police station and the temple you mentioned and try to track them down. In the meanwhile, how are you doing? Are you having any problems with the spiritual binding Sachi put on you?” Mariko asked.

“I don’t think so,” Akane answered slowly. “At least, not anything specific that I could point to. I’ve been having some strange dizzy spells, but I talked to a nurse and she suggested I might have some nutritional problems and should try taking vitamins for a while. I’ve been having more bad dreams, and strange dreams that I can’t remember the next morning, but that might not be related at all.”

Mariko hummed thoughtfully. “Well, hopefully the vitamins will help. It sounds like you aren’t sleeping well either, and that could be part of the problem too. Nevertheless, it might serve you well to start working on shoring up your spiritual core.”

Akane cocked her head in confusion. “By doing what exactly?”

“It depends on your belief system and schedule,” started Mariko, “but regular prayer and meditation might help. You could try going to church more often, if you have one you attend. Otherwise, there is observing and participating in services at your local shrines and monasteries. But at the very least meditation and attempting to achieve spiritual oneness would be a great start.”

Akane grimaced. “I’ve never been great about staying calm enough to meditate consistently, but I guess I can try.”

“Good girl,” Mariko praised. “I know you’ll get it if you keep at it. You have enough fire and determination that I bet you can do just about anything you set your mind to. Good luck and take care of yourself.” On that final note, she ended the call and hung up.

Akane now had a full blown headache. What if Sachi’s disappearance had to do with the demon and his forces on Iriomote Island? Of course, considering the woman had called Akane from a police station, it was just as likely that she’d gotten herself into some other more mundane trouble. Heck, she was just as likely to be on a cruise ship in a bikini living it up with a bunch of college boys. The monastery probably had more resources than Akane did for looking into it. Hopefully they’d find her soon and call Akane to put her worries to rest.

Akane left the house and began walking down the street to her work at Dr. Tofu’s practice. For most of the walk, she mentally struggled with whether or not to finally talk to him about her problems. She probably should, especially since Sachi had seemingly disappeared, but Akane wasn’t sure she was up to another grueling conversation so soon after her visit to the women’s clinic.

As she entered the office and took off her coat to hang it up, she still hadn’t decided. However, she was about 2/3rds of the way towards deciding to be a big girl, talking to him, and committing to stop ignoring her problems as if they didn’t exist. But then the decision was taken away from her.

A frazzled Dr. Tofu breezed into the front room holding a suitcase and a piece of paper covered in block writing. “Akane, good, I’m glad you’re here,” Dr. Tofu said in one of the most stressed out tones Akane had ever heard from him. As she watched, he taped the piece of paper to the door and then tossed a roll of tape onto the desk behind him.

“I have to leave town suddenly. My cousin just had a baby and then her husband broke both his arms and all the rest of our relatives got the flu after a family reunion that I luckily missed out on since there seems to be a lot of projectile vomiting involved and fluids coming from every orifice and stuff you probably don’t want details on,” he paused to take a deep breath and adjust his glasses. “I’ll be out of town for at least 2 weeks helping everyone, so I need you to call and reschedule all of my appointments. You can forward the urgent ones to Dr. Maeda. I left his contact info in the office. When you are done, lock up for me. I’ll give you a call later this month if I’m going to be gone longer than planned. I left my emergency contact info in the office as well.” Dr. Tofu stuffed his free hand into one arm of his coat and opened the door.

“Oh, and I was supposed to meet your sister Ka-Kasumi for tea tomorrow after my valium yoga class,” for the first time his voice stumbled a bit. His face suddenly looked a little bit lost and sad. “Could you tell her I’m sorry? Really, really sorry?” He’d put his coat on backwards and upside-down as he finished, but since he’d done much sillier things when talking about Kasumi, Akane wasn’t going to mention it.

“Of course, Dr. Tofu,” Akane said. “I’ll take care of everything, and Kasumi will understand. Good luck taking care of your family.”

Meeting her eyes, Dr. Tofu smiled and said, “I knew I could count on you Akane. Thank you, and sorry for the trouble.”

Akane couldn’t help the little flutter in her stomach caused by his handsome smile and warm trust. “It’s no problem at all, Dr. Tofu. Travel safely,” she said

Repositioning his coat so he could button it up in front, Dr. Tofu sent her one last harried smile and then disappeared down the street. Akane locked the door behind him. Then she spent the next couple of hours making phone calls and getting the office ready for his absence. Once all of the trash was put out, the small refrigerator emptied, and the thermostat reset, she exited the clinic and made her way down the street towards Ukyo’s okonomiyaki restaurant.

Two weeks should definitely give her enough time to gear up her courage to talk about Okinawa and demons again. She would go to Dr. Tofu for help when he came back. _She would_ , she promised herself. It was the mature thing to do.

Akane was so distracted by her thoughts as she turned the corner that she didn’t realize what was in front of her until she ran right into a tall, warm, muscular body. “Oh, I’m so sorry!” she gasped as large hands closed around her waist to steady her as she looked up into the softly smiling face of Ranma Saotome. He held onto her for a second longer than necessary, perhaps making sure she was stable, before letting her go. His hands trailed down her arms as he stepped back, leaving warm tingles in their wake.

“You were about to run into the light pole, and you didn’t look up when I called your name,” he said softly.

Flustered, Akane willed herself not to blush or lean forward into his warmth. Instead, she made herself start walking as she answered, “Sorry, I was distracted because… um, Dr. Tofu’s family got sick so he had to leave town suddenly for a couple of weeks.”

“Poor guy, that stinks,” Ranma replied. “Is there anything I can do to help?”

Akane sent him a smile for his thoughtfulness. “Nah, I cleaned and closed up the office after he left. Everything should be taken care of until he comes back.”

“Well good,” Ranma replied as he put his arms behind his head and sent her a look from the corner of his eye. “So, I wanna tell you something but you gotta promise to keep it a secret and not act weird about it or nothing.”

Curiosity piqued, Akane bit her lip and then nodded. “Okay, I promise.”

Ranma scratched the back of his head and looked away as he explained. “So I had a super weird conversation this morning. I ran into Shampoo over by the canal, nothing unusual about that, but then I noticed that she was really, really smelling like Mousse again, even more than the last time I saw her.”

Akane blinked in surprise but didn’t interrupt.

“So anyways, you know I got no filter between my mouth and my brain, so I asked her about it before I could stop myself. Then she said some stuff about China and Amazon culture that kinda went over my head, but after that, Shampoo said that she’d decided to take pity on Mousse and accept him as her second husband, that he’d help keep the house and watch the kids while we trained.”

“What?” Akane couldn’t help but exclaim. “Second husband!”

“I know!” Ranma replied as he flailed his hands around. “I mean, I’m happy for Mousse and all, because you know he worships Shampoo and usually it seems like she thinks he’s an idiot and won’t even give him the time of day, but yeah. I did not see that coming at all.” Then he rolled his eyes. “Shampoo tried to say that she was keeping the first husband spot open for me, and I tried to tell her that she should just stick with Mousse because I didn’t need or want it.”

Ranma sent Akane a quick sideways glance from between his lashes to check her reaction, and then said firmly, “I don’t know if she got it, since she usually ignores anything I say that she doesn’t like the sound of. Shampoo is a friend and a good ally to us, but I don’t,” he swallowed and then spit out quickly, “I don’t care about her like that. I don’t want to marry Shampoo. I never have.”

“Oh,” Akane breathed out as she stared down at her clasped hands. Ranma had always yelled about not wanting to marry anybody, but he’d never said something specific about that to Akane, especially not in private. This sounded almost like a declaration. Akane wanted so badly to ask him just who he _did_ want to marry then, if not Shampoo, but she couldn’t get the words out over the pounding in her chest and the hope trying to bubble up from the box she tried to keep locked up in her heart.

She’d just opened her mouth to say _something_ , when they were interrupted by a small cough. “Excuse me, Akane?” said a hesitant female voice.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chapter is awesome! If you don’t love it, I’m gonna have to revoke your membership card (or deflate my own ego, but seriously, scorch marks will be left on your screen).


	28. Girl Talk and the Competitive Kiss

Akane and Ranma both stopped and looked over. It was Miaka. She was nervously twisting a bag back and forth between her hands as she met their surprised looks. “Hi, um, I was wondering if I could talk to Akane for a little bit? Privately, if that’s okay?” It was the most subdued and nervous that Akane had ever seen Miaka act. Akane had been doing her best not to make any assumptions about Miaka before, and she wasn’t going to start guessing now, especially when it looked like she might get the truth from the horse’s mouth.

When Akane glanced over at Ranma, he returned her look with a quirk of his brow that meant that he would go along with whatever she wanted. Encouraged, Akane sent him a grateful smile. “How about I meet you in the park in about an hour?” she asked him. The air had warmed up from this morning enough that Akane had actually unbuttoned her coat as she’d walked, so the park should be pleasant if a bit brisk.

“Sure, no problem. See you later Akane, Miaka,” he said with a nod at each of them before he turned and continued down the street toward Ukyo’s restaurant.

“I grabbed some food,” Miaka said as she swung the plastic bag in Akane’s direction, “so we can just go sit on a bench and talk.” Akane agreed and followed Miaka as they walked about a block to reach a small rock garden just inside the gate of a small monastery. Neither girl spoke as they walked.

Finally, they sat down on one of the benches not shaded by the walls or trees. The late February sun warmed it enough to make sitting pleasant. Miaka passed Akane a still warm bottle of tea and a couple of rice balls. Akane smiled to herself. Miaka still remembered her favorite flavors and brands.

Finally, Akane broke the increasingly tense silence. “I haven’t mentioned anything to anyone. I wouldn’t,” she said.

Miaka blushed and turned to face Akane. “No, of course not. I know you aren’t that kind of person. I wouldn’t say anything about seeing you either, but that’s not why I wanted to talk. Actually I,” she paused and took a deep breath, before saying on the exhale, “I wanted to thank you.”

“For what?” Akane asked, confused.

Tucking a strand of dark hair behind her ear, Miaka answered. “I’d been trying to work up the courage to go into the clinic for weeks. I practically had a permanent table at that café across the street from all of the lurking I was doing, trying to get up the gumption to actually walk inside. Then I saw you go in. You, Akane Tendo, of all people,” she gave a sad laugh. “Just knowing you were in that building was enough to get over my fears long enough to walk inside.”

Miaka twisted off the cap of her tea and took a quick sip. “Right after Christmas, I started to suspect that I might be pregnant. I’d missed my period twice. When I told my boyfriend that I was scared, he dumped me and accused me of being a slut and sleeping around, even though the only boy I’ve ever been with was him. He’s denying all responsibility.” Miaka’s breath hitched and a few tears finally escaped from her glistening eyes. She wiped them away angrily and sent Akane a painful smile. “You said from the beginning that he was no good. I should have listened.”

Unable to stop herself, Akane put her hand on Miaka’s and squeezed. “I’m so sorry. Want me to beat him up for you? I totally will.”

A watery chuckle escaped Miaka. “Maybe. It won’t matter soon anyways. The clinic only confirmed what I’d suspected. I am pregnant. As soon as we graduate in April, my family is sending me to live up North with my aunt. They don’t want me to shame the family or the Shrine in the local community.”

“Oh Miaka, I’m so sorry. He’s a rat, and no mistake,” Akane grumbled sympathetically.

“Yes, well, spilled milk,” Miaka sighed. “My dad offered to go and speak to his parents, maybe force him to marry me, but as much as this is going to suck alone, I don’t think I want to marry him anymore. After what he said, how he used and hurt me, I don’t want to be around him. He’s already dating another girl, some sophomore. He doesn’t deserve someone as,” she stumbled on her words, but forced herself to finish in a wobbly tone of voice, “as awesome as me, and as wonderful as my kid is gonna be.” Not knowing what to say to make things better, Akane just squeezed Miaka’s hand again. However she didn’t fight it when Miaka twisted away to get a little distance and grabbed her drink.

After a few moments, Miaka sent Akane a forced smile. “I might force him to pay child support later, but otherwise I want nothing to do with him now. I’ve been thinking about looking up Mami from last year and forming a support group for teen moms from Furinkan. Speaking of which,” Miaka asked, “what about you? Did Ranma accidentally get you…?” she trailed off leadingly.

“Oh! No!” Akane gasped out. “Ranma and I haven’t even kissed yet, not really.”

“Then why were you at the clinic?” Miaka asked with a suddenly guarded expression.

Akane bit her lip, but decided to trade painful truth for painful truth. “I haven’t told anyone but the nurse, but… when I was in Okinawa over the fall holiday, I got kidnapped and knocked out by some men. Some of my clothes were missing when I woke up, and I haven’t had my period since. Luckily, the pregnancy tests came back negative, though they couldn’t tell me if anything had,” she stopped, gulped in a breath, and then finished quietly, “really happened to me or not when I was unconscious, since so much time has passed.”

This time it was Miaka reaching out to squeeze Akane’s hand. “I’m sorry. I guess that explains Ranma’s calm exterior. I figured he had to be completely ignorant. He’s not that good at faking stuff. Of course, you do realize that if he finds out something like that happened to you, he is going to completely blow his top, like Hiroshima levels.”

Akane grimaced. “I don’t plan on ever telling him.”

Miaka shrugged and unwrapped one of her rice balls. “Well, just in case, if you do tell him, or if he finds out, make sure I’m out of the city or that he’s in the countryside or something so the destruction is limited. That boy may be unable to say a sweet word to you in public without ruining it a second later, but his actions are much louder. He’s only gotten more and more possessive and brutal every year where you are concerned.”

Akane scoffed, but Miaka just nodded her head seriously. “You don’t always notice things that are right in front of your face, Akane, and you know it. Heck, maybe I can see it more clearly because I’m just observing from a distance, but,” she pointed a pinky finger at Akane, “I’m telling you, he’s gonna break. If he doesn’t do one of those crazy energy blasts and level a forest in his anger and rage, he’s going to finally pick you up, throw you over his shoulder, and take you back to his cave to stake his claim.”

“Ha ha, very funny,” Akane said as she rolled her eyes. Miaka was exaggerating about Ranma. And if the thought of being thrown possessively over his shoulder and _claimed_ by Ranma made her shiver, it was nobody’s business but Akane’s.  Though if he did try it, she would definitely have to do some claim staking of her own.

Akane couldn’t believe they were joking about what had happened to them, but then again, it was Miaka. She always preferred to deflect when emotions got serious if she could. At least she used to. Whatever the case, it felt good to talk to a friend about it.

After that, it seemed like the ice was completely broken. The two of them caught up on family happenings and events that they’d missed in recent years. Akane had never met the aunt Miaka was going to go and live with, but she remembered hearing Miaka speak about her with wonder and hero worship in the past. She specialized in studying spiritual energies at another family shrine up north. Hopefully, she would be kind to Miaka and the baby.

As Miaka collected up all of their wrappers and put them back into the baggie, she sent Akane a suddenly nervous look. “So I need to tell you something else kinda weird.”

“Okay,” Akane answered agreeably, not that worried anymore. After all, what could be worse than pregnancy and potential rape? They stood up and slowly started walking back down the street towards the park.

“Sometimes the women in our family have the gift of prophetic dreams and visions. Most of the women in my family have even stronger episodes while they are pregnant, even if they never have anything but wisps otherwise.” She paused, took a breath, and then blurted out, “So I’ve been having these strange dreams and nightmares about you, and yesterday, I think I remembered telling you something about avoiding a purple cloud or a rat? In the train station last fall?”

Akane grimaced. “Oh yeah, that. I totally should have listened to you and gone home instead.”

Miaka grimaced and looked apologetic. “I wish I’d gone home with you too, but anyways, sorry it was so vague, and that I forgot about it until now. Prophecy is often like that. I’m having trouble understanding these new dreams too. I just know that some of them are about you. They could be actual visions, but hopefully they aren’t. After all, they don’t make any logical sense, like how I dreamed that you are going to die a second time. I mean, you obviously haven’t died before, so it’s probably all gibberish.” Miaka waved away her words with an expansive hand gesture.

Although she couldn’t see it, Akane could feel the blood draining from her face. “Last year, in China, I did.”

“Did what,” Miaka asked cautiously, her hands freezing mid-air.

“Died,” Akane answered succinctly.

Miaka winced. “Ok, that’s not so good then.” She took a deep breath. “I’ll figure it out. When my aunt comes to visit this week, she’s also going to teach me some things to help me control the visions a little bit better. Can you come over to the shrine next weekend? After I’ve worked on it a little bit? I can tell that this is going to be important for you, but not why, beyond the scary maybe second death thing.”

Just the thought of hearing another one of Miaka’s prophesies made Akane feel ill, especially since she still didn’t fully understand the first one even after living through some of it. However, it did sound important to Miaka, and perhaps to her own future. “I’ll come on Saturday morning, since my work got cancelled. Does that work?”

Miaka agreed, then added after a hesitation, “You can bring Ranma with you if you want, as long as he’s not going to explode about it. I’ve been getting flashes of him too, though only associated with you and whatever it is I’m supposed to tell you. I’m not clear on what he has to do with it yet, but he’s definitely involved.”

“I’ll think about it,” Akane answered cautiously. She still didn’t want to discuss any of this with Ranma. At the next corner, Miaka gave her a tight hug. “I’m glad we’re friends again,” she whispered.

“Me too,” Akane replied thickly with a squeeze of her arms before clearing her throat and letting Miaka go. Miaka turned left, Akane turned right, and they parted ways with a smile. Shaking her head and rolling her shoulders, Akane forced herself to put her worries and the conversation out of her mind.

At the park, she had a few minutes to warm up before Ranma appeared. By that time, she was focused and ready to spar. Months spent playing around combining techniques allowed her to knock Ranma down twice in a row. _Twice_! Of course, part of it was probably due to how he constantly underestimated her, and how he seemed a bit distracted at first, but that was still his fault, not hers. They were sweet, sweet victories that she would enjoy for quite a while.

After that, he got extremely competitive and focused, quickly picking up all her new tricks and soon surpassing her ability to follow what he was doing. Reminding herself that his crappy, horrible childhood enabled him to be this good, and that she wouldn’t want to go through that even if it meant she’d be equally talented, she tried to force herself to let go of the jealousy. Ranma helped buoy her mood by staying playful. Sometimes, he would even stop and force himself to slow down a bit to show her how to replicate his moves. It was a lot of fun exerting herself and sparring all through the park.

Even though she wasn’t as good as Ranma, something about the way he talked to her today made her think that he respected her efforts. There was a maturity in their interactions that she hadn’t often, perhaps ever, experienced with him. It was wonderful. Akane found herself losing track of time as they played for hours in the park. Only the setting sun, and their grumbling bellies, finally forced them to quit.

* * *

 

The next evening, Akane finished her homework for school early. Looking at the calendar above her desk, she realized that she only had two months left before graduation. Miaka had said it, but Akane hadn’t really thought about it.  Once upon a time it had been strange to walk to school with Ranma by her side each day, back when she’d been 16 and suspicious of the strange boy wearing Chinese clothes. Now, at 18, she couldn’t imagine not always having him there. 

As soon as they graduated high school though, there wouldn’t be anything to keep the Saotomes in the house.  Ranma’s mother would prefer that they live with her, but Genma had used the excuse that the school was closer for Ranma here and that it would minimize damage to her house. But Nodoka had already extracted Genma’s promise to move back as soon as school ended. 

Though there was the engagement….

But Akane was doing her best not to set her heart on a wedding, because she didn’t want to face what not having it would mean. Just thinking about not having Ranma by her side every day made her feel like she’d been stabbed in the chest repeatedly with splintering chopsticks. Her only protection was trying not to read too much into his smiles and romantic gestures. She had to keep reminding herself that Ranma could be a jerk, after all. It was getting harder, especially after their wonderful afternoon in the park yesterday, to keep beating down her hopes. But if Ranma couldn’t choose just one woman after almost three years living here, maybe it was because he didn’t like his options.

He certainly seemed open to flirting with any floozy when he wanted or needed something, as his recent actions had reinforced for her.  Maybe he’d graduate and decide to take up martial arts hair dressing full time, or become Shampoo’s first husband after all. Akane had given him a zillion opportunities to say something if he really liked her, but he never said anything specific! Not once!

A snide little voice whispered that she hadn’t said anything specific to him either, despite all of her opportunities, but Akane squashed it like a bug.

If Ranma didn’t want her, Akane just wished he would let some other man have a chance of earning her heart, instead of acting all jealous, scaring the other men away, and giving her hope by flirting with her.  Once they had graduated, he wouldn’t have school as an excuse to be here.  Ranma would either have to beg her to marry him, or move out.

In the meanwhile, the only way to protect herself was to treat him like a harmless flirt and keep repressing the truth about how much she loved everything about Ranma Saotome, even and including his myriad curses, including his girl-side and cat-side. Akane huffed out an angry breath at herself for allowing that thought to surface.

Going over to the window, she drew a smiling cat in the fogged glass. Although cold had fogged her window, she knew from earlier in the day that there was no snow on the ground, only yellowed grass. Her friend Yuka, whose family owned a cat, had told Akane that you couldn’t force a cat to do anything.  They weren’t like dogs, which would do tricks for the sake of a treat and would snuggle up to almost anyone. Dogs didn’t mind being leashed or domesticated. 

But a cat was different. “You don’t own a cat,” Yuka proclaimed, “a cat owns you.  And they are picky about who they choose to be their person.” She had hesitated then, but to be Akane’s friend you had to be brave, so she continued, “It must mean something, that when Ranma thinks he’s a cat he chooses to go to you - you out of everyone.”

Was it pitiful that Akane wanted to believe it?  Sometimes she felt a thrill replaying the memory of Ranma’s cat kiss and how he’d stroked his tongue along her skin. _Yes, it was pitiful_ , she scolded herself, because those were memories Ranma didn’t share unless in a dream, things he did while thinking he was a cat, not a man.  An affectionate cat didn’t prove anything when you were looking for love and marriage and commitment.

Erasing the drawing with a swipe of her hand, Akane wiped the moisture off on the side of her shirt.  She’d finished her homework and had already exercised.  Instead of brooding, she should just go to bed early. She hadn’t been sleeping well lately, as she’d been having nightmares about Iriomote Island again. During the day she’d repressed most of those memories, but at night they seeped out to torment her. A good night’s sleep would probably make everything better.

Nodding decisively, Akane grabbed her flannel pajamas and placed them on her desk.  The flannel kept her warm despite the cold air emanating from the window.  She suspected that the windowsill had cracked from one too many encounters with Ranma, Happosai, and thrown barbells, but she’d have to wait to fix it.  During New Years, Nabiki had given them a new budget and an ultimatum – if they broke anything more before she returned home from school in April, it would have to stay broken.  That or they could pay for it themselves. 

_With what source of income?_ Akane thought to herself with a snort.  Daddy only taught as much as he had to, so he never had much extra money.  Every once in a while Akane would do an odd job in town for a little extra pocket money, and there was her work for Dr. Tofu, but after bankrupting herself four of the last six months repairing the house and dojo, Akane had finally gotten the hang of curbing her destructive temper.  Hadn’t she proved her self-control by not hitting Ranma even once when he’d been wrapped around that ditsy hairdresser, or when he’d given her that weak explanation for his actions? 

At least Ranma had been sweet about paying for things when they hung out after school together. Even if he didn’t have much money himself, he still tried to look out for her. When he turned himself into a girl to con food out of guys, Ranko always made sure now to con enough for two.  Akane had given up on being disapproving a long time ago.  She was too poor to look down on a free cupcake or hot chocolate.  Plus, if those guys hadn’t figured out Ranko’s ploy after over two years, Akane had trouble respecting them very much. Though considering that he was now fake flirting as a guy as well as a girl, Akane might have to revise her opinion.

Akane had a depressing thought. Sometimes she thought that he was flirting with her lately, but what if that was fake flirting too? Maybe she should just act like all his flirting was boring, and try not to respond when he sent her that teasing smirk that made her heart flutter. It would be hard though. Really hard.

Raising her arms, Akane stretched up onto her toes and yawned. Then she scrubbed her fingers hard through her hair, shaking away her negative thoughts as hard as she could. Slipping out of her skirt, she put on some cool flannel pajama pants.  Unbuttoning her blouse, she threw it into the clothes hamper. Finally, she reached back and unclasped her bra.  As the straps started to slide down her arms, Akane heard a perfunctory knock before her door was thrown open.

“Hey Akane,” Ranma barged in, “can I borrow your history boo-whoa!”

Clasping her left arm frantically over her chest to hold the slipping bra in place, Akane picked up the book in question off her desk and threw it at his head.  “Pervert, don’t just walk in!”

Ranma caught the book before it could smack him in the face and quickly turned around.  “Sorry about that,” he caroled unrepentantly with a little smirk, “and thanks!”

When did he stop sounding terrified of her wrath? Akane wondered in surprise. And just what did that little smirk mean?

Grabbing the doorknob, Ranma was halfway back out the door when suddenly he stopped. Then, in an explosion of movement, Ranma’s head whipped back around and skewered her with his electric blue eyes. It wasn’t a salacious look either. Akane felt flash frozen by his suddenly intent and increasingly rage-filled glare as it slowly ran up and down her body. But somehow she could tell that the rage wasn’t directed at her, it was protective.

He’d never looked at her like that before. At least, not that she’d noticed. It was like Ranma had taken of his overwhelming energy and focused it all on Akane, without any shields to hide the immensity of his power. Akane felt both scared and, dare she admit it, aroused. Ranma made her feel like a mouse about to get eaten, and she wasn’t sure that she’d mind. Her muscles went weak and the air stalled in her lungs. Perhaps she was just tired or shocked, but like a match with no oxygen, Akane’s temper failed to ignite and burn away her freezing paralysis. So she uncharacteristically waited for him to say something first.

Time stretched out unbearably. Akane felt like pulled taffy getting thinner and thinner each moment, until Ranma finally broke the silence with a question. “Where,” he asked softly, carefully enunciating each word, “did that come from?”

Finally broken from the spell of his intense eyes, Akane took a deep, gasping breath.  She had no idea what he was talking about and she wanted him out of there. She didn’t want to feel this intensely about him anymore. She’d made a new resolution just a second ago, remember? To treat him like a flirt? Plus, she was in the middle of undressing.

_In this sort of situation, I have every right to get mad, right?_ _Right_. Taking another big breath, Akane shook off her paralysis and finally felt her righteous indignation sputter to life.

“What?  Ranma, I’m getting dressed.  Get out, you pervert!” Although her voice started out weak, by the end of it she’d regained her usual tone of loud irritation. If only she hadn’t cleaned off her desk earlier that evening, she’d be throwing something else at him.  Unfortunately, she couldn’t afford a new lamp right now, no matter how tempting.

Ranma’s eyes narrowed dangerously.  The borrowed history book dropped from his fingers, forgotten, as he stepped back into the room and closed the door behind him with an ominous click.

“I asked, **where did that come from**?” he repeated, his voice dropping register to end in a bass growl. 

As he prowled closer, Akane could sense pulses of his aura dancing like blue and red flames just above the surface of his skin.  The only times she’d ever seen him like this before were during a serious battle.  Something was dangerously off. 

But this was her room and she would not back down to Ranma, no matter how scary he looked advancing on her. Yes, she was a little scared… and a lot angry. She’d just confused arousal for the first flush of outrage, she told herself. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, you idiot, but I said GET OUT!” Akane fired back. Her barbells might be out of reach, but enough was enough. Hitting him was more important than a desk lamp anyways. Leaning back against her desk, she sent the itching fingers of her free hand questing for the lamp.

Then Ranma lifted his finger and pointed at her side.  “I’m talking about that scar.  Who cut you, Akane?  When?”  he shouted angrily, his voice carrying a raw undertone.

Akane felt unbalanced by his questions. The fingers questing for her desk lamp spasmed and went limp. In the months since it had happened, and even when discussing it with Miaka, she had fooled herself into thinking she’d never have to talk about it with him.

“What, this old thing?” she gave a nervous laugh, “I’ve had it for ages. I don’t even remember where I got it.”

An angry growl escaped Ranma’s throat as he took another step closer.  “I’ve seen you naked, Akane, more than once.  I know your body.”

Flustered, Akane let her instincts take over.  Giving up her search for the lamp completely, she reared back and tried to slap Ranma.  But then something unexpected happened. 

Instead of letting Akane hit him, Ranma caught her wrist before it could connect and squeezed firmly, just shy of pain. He’d never done that before in an argument, never forced her to acknowledge his superior strength.  Akane gasped, starting to lose her bravado. She was acutely conscious of her vulnerability at that moment, of the size of his calloused hand where it completely circled her wrist, of his height as he loomed over her, of how only her arm and a scrap of slipping lace shielded her chest from his gaze.

Stopping only inches away, Ranma held her eyes angrily as he forced her tense arm back down to her side with a jerk. “Don’t lie to me,” he ordered.  “This!” He lifted his other hand to trace the raised red line bracketed by the dots of stitches on her side with a scorching fingertip, “This is _new_.” 

Akane shivered and swallowed.  Something new swam into Ranma’s eyes at her reaction, but before she could decipher it he dropped his head to stare at the wound.

“When Pops and I travelled through southern Japan, we stayed for a time at a dojo that specialized in knife-fighting. I know that this cut was made with blade between five and seven inches long,” he stated in a tone almost analytical and emotionless.  “The blade was slightly dull, and the wound was bludgeoned before fully healing, as shown by the uneven scarring.”  The sudden reasonableness of his tone made her even more nervous. 

Placing his hand once again at the top of the scar, he slowly dragged his fingers down her side like a molten brand, exploring each bump with his calloused fingertips.  “I can see the dimpling of stitches, meaning that the wound was deep and, considering the muscles it cuts through, probably very painful. If it had gone deep enough, it would have perforated your bowel. Left untreated, a bowel wound would have caused a protracted, agonizing death.”  His voice caught a little, the tone finally becoming tight on his last words.

Suddenly he splayed his hand completely over the scar, hiding it from sight like a young child who trusts that if he can’t see something, it no longer exists. But Ranma had not been a trusting child for a very long time. He knew that solutions were never that simple.

“Where was I when this happened?”  Ranma demanded softly.  His bangs obscured his eyes, hiding his expression from Akane. She could only see the tautness of his lips and chin, and that told her nothing his voice hadn’t.

“It doesn’t matter,” Akane prevaricated, trying to get him to drop the subject.

Ranma responded by lifting up his head sharply and moving even closer.  “It does to me.”  His thumb began to rub up and down her stomach in a sensual scrape. The remaining fingers tightened and relaxed against her back, kneading her skin rhythmically in a manner that felt anything but comforting.

“Ukyo doesn’t have any weapons that could make a wound like this, but Shampoo might.  Did Shampoo do this?” he asked in a crooning voice that terrified her for all of its softness. 

This wasn’t the Ranma she was used to, who turned a smiling or blustering face to his friends and enemies.  This was something darker and deeper that had slinked out from behind his usual mask of bravado. Akane didn’t know this Ranma. His voice scared her, but his touch… Akane was trying very hard to ignore the breathless tingling caused by his touch.

“No, it wasn’t Shampoo or Ukyo,” she quickly clarified, trying to placate the insane glint in his eyes. She started to inch back but had no room, since he’d trapped her against her desk.

A chilling smile quirked his lips, “But it was somebody.” His eyes burned into hers.  “Tell me who.”

Akane lifted her chin stubbornly. “No,” she denied him.  “I took care of it.”

Leaning over her menacingly, he demanded, “Tell me!”

“No!” she refused, glaring up at him for being such a bully.

Sparks flew between their eyes as they tried to stare each other down.  Akane could feel Ranma’s hot breath puffing against her cheeks from mere inches away.  She refused to be the first to look away.

Suddenly, and she never knew which one of them swayed forward first, they were kissing.  But this was no simple press of lips, no girlish fantasy of a prince touching his lips reverently to hers, or a shy, virginal fumbling. This kiss was raw and hard, declaring war, demanding surrender.

Ranma’s mouth crashed into Akane’s, forcing her lips open for the invasion of his tongue and bowing back her neck.  Pressing back aggressively, she slanted her head to keep her lips from being crushed into her teeth and widened her jaw. Tongues and lips dueled for supremacy. For a few seconds it remained a battle for control and domination, the fact that the battle took place within a kiss seemed almost superfluous.

_No, not like this,_ Akane thought.

And then she relaxed her neck, let her head fall back slightly, and ran her tongue lightly along Ranma’s lower lip. In response, he gasped against her mouth, breathing in her rapid exhalations, and shivered. His response filled her with a sense of feminine power and quickened her heartbeat. Akane had never felt this way. She wanted to make him do it again.

In response, Ranma lightly bit her top lip, simultaneously dragging his nails down her back and across her stomach. Akane involuntarily arched her back and shivered as pleasure tingled up and down her spine. Releasing her lip with a gentle scrape of his teeth, Ranma looked quite self-satisfied.

After that, the touches changed, became less about winning and losing, and more about Ranma and Akane giving each other pleasure, making the other respond with a gasp or groan or shiver (because they couldn’t _completely_ abandon competition) and _finally kissing each other_ after almost three years of foreplay. Merging again, their lips touched softly this time, rubbing lightly to learn the other’s shape and texture. Using slow, drugging kisses, they learned from each other what it truly meant to give and receive a kiss - the positioning of heads and lips and tongues, how and when to breath, the importance and simultaneous irrelevance of taste, and reacting to and inciting your partner – those things that must be experienced because mere description cannot encompass the true electricity of something as intimate and individualized as kissing someone you only admit to loving in the privacy of your most secret thoughts.

But Ranma had always been a quick learner, and Akane always rose to a challenge, so soon the pauses between kisses decreased as they mastered the basics. Soft exploration once again turned to hard need. Their mouths devoured each other, voracious and wet and hungry. ~~~~

Releasing her wrist, which he’d held onto all this time, Ranma ran his hand down her thigh and lifted her leg up around his waist, forcing their bodies tightly together as he pressed her against the edge of her desk. All of his hard places slotted into the hollows of her body. They both gasped. The hand caressing her side slid a scorching trail up the bare skin of her back to fist in her hair, pulling her head back so Ranma could trail sucking kisses down the side of her neck. He nipped hard at her shoulder, forcing Akane to whimper in a mish-mash of pleasure-pain, before returning to feast upon her swollen lips.

Akane welcomed his return, licking into his mouth greedily. One of her arms was partially trapped between their bodies, but she used the other to drag up the back of his shirt and send her fingers questing up his spine. Steely muscles rippled beneath the smooth texture of his skin as her fingers explored. The slickness of his sweat allowed her touch-starved fingers to glide hungrily across his shoulder blades and up and down the length of his back.

Ranma kept one hand buried tightly in her hair, keeping her head at the perfect angle for his kisses, as if she might try to escape. Silly Ranma. The other danced over the edge of her waistband before caressing up her side and glancing over the bare edge of her breast, plump where it escaped the tight squeeze of their bodies. His fingers hesitated, with each fingertip exerting so little pressure that the absence of more touch was like a torturous sting. Akane couldn’t help but whimper against his lips and lean sideways enough to complete the electric circuit between her body and his hand.

Despite her encouragement, he still used the lightest of touches to reverently trace the curve, panting against her lips as he memorized the shape and feeling of her lush skin. Each touch left fiery tingles that only more touching could soothe. She needed more. Akane recaptured his lips, surging inside with her tongue as she raked fingernails down his back.

The awkward positioning of Akane’s arm prevented the complete press of their bodies, along with Ranma’s shirt. She hated that shirt and she hated her arm because she desperately wanted to feel the surging heat of his body on her chest and the drag of his skin against her flesh. She could never have imagined this, or how she’d respond to it. Akane’s body throbbed.  There was heat and hands and lips and if something more didn’t happen right this second she was going to explode.

Before she could decide what that something more was, a sudden loud commotion downstairs broke through their intimate bubble. Startled, Ranma and Akane both froze, breathing hard against each other’s lips. After a second, her scrambled thoughts managed to identify it as their fathers arguing about something. Ranma’s hands dropped to her hips.

Unable to meet Ranma’s eyes, Akane forced herself to remove her hand out from under Ranma’s shirt. She couldn’t keep her fingers from dragging just a little down the muscles of his slightly sweaty back, causing Ranma’s breath to catch and his body to jerk, dragging his lower lip briefly across her upper one. Having trouble catching her own breath, Akane forced herself to lean back from the enticing heat of his body and the nearness of his mouth before she fell again into temptation. Her skin felt cold, lonely at being separated even slightly from his touch. Akane did her best to ignore it, barely catching her bra as it started to slip and pulling it back up over her chest.

“Ranma…,” she whispered huskily, trailing off when she couldn’t find any more words to explain her chaotic thoughts. She focused her eyes on the shine of his thick black hair and tried to breathe evenly. Only when they heard the creaking coming up the stairs did Ranma finally lower her leg from his waist and step back from where he’d pinned her against the edge of her desk.

“This isn’t over,” Ranma warned in a voice like gravel. Reaching under his shirt to touch his back, his fingers came back slightly smudged with blood. Akane winced in mortification. Ranma sent her a savage smile, seized her gaze with his electric blue eyes, and licked his fingertips clean with one swipe of his red tongue. Then he reached forward and tucked a strand of sweaty hair back behind her ear. His fingers drifted slowly down the shell of her ear, and she wanted to sway forward again.

The sound of footsteps came closer down the hall. “Tomorrow,” he promised. Then he pulled back and clenched the hand that had been touching her into a fist, as if to keep the sensation, before opening the window and swinging with a pained grimace out of the room and up onto the roof.

Luckily for Akane, the footsteps continued down the hallway, never stopping at her door. Completely overwhelmed, she fell onto her bed, put the pillow over her face, and screamed. A few minutes later, she finally finished pulling on her pajama top. Then she cautiously sneaked out to the bathroom to brush her teeth and wash her face.

She’d never understood in the past how girls could get so stupid over boys, or let their boyfriends go farther physically than they’d planned. But after having her own brain turn to mush at the touch of Ranma’s lips and hands, she felt unfortunately enlightened. She was pretty sure she would have stopped Ranma soon, before anything more had happened.  But the fact that she wasn’t _absolutely_ sure scared her. In her rational moments she had decided not to do anything too sexual before marriage, nothing beyond a few chaste kisses. But obviously lust was poison to rationality. Or maybe there was just something in Ranma’s saliva, she thought with a snort as she ground her palms against her eyes in frustration. _Try not being half-naked with him, that might help,_ she thought with a wince. In the future, she had better lock her door before getting changed. Better not to tempt either of them too much, even by accident.

Coming out of the bathroom, she was surprised to see P-chan trotting down the hallway. “P-chan, I haven’t seen you in ages,” Akane whispered with a tired smile, grateful for something to distract her from her thoughts. The light caught P-chan’s eyes strangely for a second, reminding her of something or someone familiar, but Akane ignored it as always, and chalked it up to being tired. Scooping up the small black pig with his yellow bandana, Akane snuck back into her room. “Boy could I use a friendly distraction like you right now.”

Turning out the light, she tucked P-chan into bed with her after bestowing a quick kiss on his snout. It wasn’t anything unusual, but the quick kiss suddenly reminded her of her slightly swollen lips, and how they’d gotten that way, and of the small purple mark now hidden by the collar of her shirt. For a second, Akane desperately wanted to talk to someone about this.

She briefly considered telling P-chan, who she’d used as a confidant before, but as much as she wanted to talk about what had just happened, she didn’t know what to say. Where would she even start? It was all too big. If Akane once again tossed and turned all night, at least this time it wasn’t because of nightmares.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So their first kiss finally happened in the story. The bones of this makeout scene have been written for three and a half years, just waiting until the story was ripe for it. Editing it was tough though, because I kept adding stuff on every pass. I’m forcing myself to stop now. Nevertheless, I’m quite proud of how scorching it was, but that might just be me. Was it worth the wait? What did you think? And what will Ranma think if he finds out that Akane kissed him like that, and then spent the night in bed with P-chan? 
> 
> But a warning for those sick of their two steps forward one step back relationship that is their canon. It isn’t over yet. Kisses, even awesome ones, aren’t substitutes for talking. We still have Akane’s insecurity and Ranma’s overconfidence. To wrap up the story they still have to deal with the demon’s possession of Akane that Ranma doesn’t know about, and Ranma’s tie to Akane that Akane still doesn’t know about, and a new prophesy from Miaka, which means several more chapters. This means that there are truths that have to still be revealed, which leads to more difficulty and some angst still to come. Because if somebody doesn’t start talking honestly about what is going on soon there are going to be repercussions. Considering the complexity of Ranma and Akane’s relationship, a kiss, even a mutual kiss, isn’t enough to solve everything. My point? They are going to get together, and there is going to be an awesome happily ever after, and this kiss was a big deal that will advance their relationship, but like everything in Ranma-verse, things won’t come easy, and people will probably jump to conclusions and put their foot in their mouth before the end. So brace yourself for the rest of the ride, but please don’t get off just yet. I’ll make it worth your while.  
> Thanks for reading so far, giving me your thoughts and encouragement, and continuing on this journey with me.


	29. Deep Thoughts and Hot Tea

The next day was a school day and unfortunately for Ranma, Akane used that to her advantage by avoiding being alone with him for most of the day. Once again. But the conversation they needed to have was a private one, not one in front of family or schoolmates. That meant he had to wait for his chance. _Weren’t women supposed to like talking?_

When he saw her in history class, Akane blushed and looked away quickly. But then she stole a glance back at him from beneath her lashes. Ranma felt his own cheeks heat. He spent most of the period trying not to stare at Akane as his mind kept reliving memories of the night before. Consequently he bombed the history quiz, but he couldn’t really bring himself to care.

After all, he’d _kissed Akane last night!_

After school, she dodged him again at the gates, making sure she was sandwiched between Yuka and Sayuri as they walked away. Ranma let her go, but he was running out of patience. He wouldn’t put up with this for much longer.

Luckily, Akane had promised Kasumi that she’d help chop vegetables for tonight’s dinner. That meant he just had to go home and she’d be forced to eventually come to him. Akane had finally managed to master evenly sliced vegetables after Kasumi started playing sleepy-sounding music in the kitchen. Kasumi also made sure Akane’s work station had little to no visual distractions. It seemed like the music and isolation was just enough to slow down Akane’s thoughts so she would listen to instructions and focus on one task at a time.

Of course, Ranma still wouldn’t trust Akane to actually combine food together into an actual meal that required cooking, at least not outside the handful of dishes she had proven herself adequate in. He may love the girl, but that didn’t mean he had any illusions about her cooking skills. When they got married, he planned on either doing most of the cooking secretly by himself, or eating a lot of takeout. They couldn’t count on Kasumi remaining single and at home forever. Ranma also figured that once he got established as a Sensei, he could take on a couple of advanced apprentices at the dojo and make them do the cooking for everyone.

When Ranma got back to the house, he tossed his backpack into his room and then went out into the backyard to practice a mix of tai chi and a few other styles. It forced him to relax and slow down his racing mind, which was stuck on a cycle of _kissed Akane, kissed Akane, tee hee!_

Taking a break to sit, breathe, and cycle his energy from the soles of his feet to his crown, Ranma finally calmed down enough to realize that his preoccupation on their kiss had caused him to forget the events immediately preceding it. Akane had a scar. Akane had been hurt. And Ranma had failed to protect her. He had failed to even realize she’d been hurt.

Ranma wanted to keep Akane safe. He wanted to wrap her in his arms gently and growl at anyone who dared to even come close. It hurt that he hadn’t been able to comfort her when it happened, or to help her as she healed. But now that he knew she’d been injured, he wanted to give her whatever he could to make her feel better. If only he knew what that was, and if only she would accept it.

On the other hand, Ranma’s thoughts were as far from gentle as you could get. He wanted to rage. He’d love to destroy something, preferably someone, over this. When Ranma found out who had hurt his Akane that badly, they were dead. He would first break every limb in their body so they couldn’t move and then rip out their intestines through their bellybutton. No pain could be enough to make up for hurting Akane like that, for _stabbing_ her. Maybe he wouldn’t let her attacker die, maybe he’d force the bastard who thought he could hurt Akane to live as an incontinent cripple for the rest of his miserable life.

The viciousness of his plans should disturb Ranma. He prided himself on being an amazing Martial Artist without being a cruel fighter. But something primitive was urging him to permanently end anything that hurt Akane and he couldn’t find a strong enough reason to disagree. Maybe it was the cat fist side of his personality influencing him, but Ranma just didn’t care. He just had to find out what had happened to give Akane that scar and make it go away forever.

Ranma knew the what, he just needed the who and when. He didn’t really care about why. It only mattered if it would help him make sure this never happened again.

Figuring out when might be easiest, he decided after a few minutes of mental struggling. To start, he needed a general time frame. _When could the attack have happened?_

The last time he’d seen Akane naked had been last fall (and the fact that it had happened more than once without him even trying made him a very, very lucky man). Shampoo had snuck into the bath with Akane for some reason, and he’d heard Akane scream. The image of the two of them naked had admittedly sent him down some perverted mental paths for a moment, but then reality, and his possessiveness, had reasserted itself and he had helped to get rid of the amazon.

Ranma could still vividly feel his fingers slipping so easily along Akane’s wet flesh as he had tried to untangle the fighters. He remembered clearly that both of Akane’s sides had been smooth and sleekly muscled then. She’d had no scars.

Some nights he’d wake up overheated from unremembered dreams with just a flash of that moment in his mind. He’d try to focus on the sound of her gasp and the expression in her eyes when his fingers slid across the miles of her pale skin moistened by the bath, but the dreams would always prove too elusive to revisit. Nevertheless, he always had trouble controlling his reactions to Akane after dreams like that.

Ranma cleared his throat. In fact, he had better focus on something else now or he would have an unwanted physical reaction here in the yard, especially with the added visuals from last night. Ranma shifted position and forced his thoughts to get back on topic. _So Akane must have been hurt some time after that scene in the bath._ It could have happened Okinawa, or with Gosunkugi’s demon possessed girlfriend, or during one of those winter months when she was almost never around. _Darn it, why did she have to be so secretive?_

But wait, he’d noticed her favoring her side during the events with the demon-possessed girlfriend. He’d assumed it had to do with girls having periods, and after that horrifying conversation with the school nurse, had promptly ignored and suppressed his reaction to any girl rubbing or clutching at her stomach or side. If it wasn’t cramps though, it could have been the wound. That means that it could have been the squirrel demon, but if it was, Ranma had already taken all of the revenge possible for that. The demon was gone and the host was innocent.

Of course, the stupid thing had said some crazy stuff to Ranma about bad things happening to Akane. Had she been threatening, or had she discovered that Akane had already gotten hurt and was hinting at something? This was maddening. Ranma would try to do some sniffing around to see if anyone at school knew anything, but really, the best thing would be to get the truth from Akane. Maybe if he came at her with his suspicions, it would make her give up her secrets. Decided on a plan, Ranma allowed his mind to go back to dwelling on their kiss the night before.

Their first kiss had been nothing like he’d ever imagined it would be. It had been so much more complicated and so much more amazing. He hadn’t realized how strong his reaction to kissing Akane would be. He’d always thought himself to have superb control over his body and mind, but that hadn’t been the case last night. Impulse and emotion had ruled him. It had been a shock how hard it was to stop kissing and touching her once he’d gotten started.

Of course, he would have stopped if Akane had pushed at him or said no even once, no matter what they’d been doing. But she hadn’t ever said no. In fact, part of him wondered if they would have stopped at all if their fathers hadn’t made such a racket getting home. Even then, it had taken more strength than he expected to step back from her body. _And what a body it was._ Of course, it wasn’t just her body, it was the passionate, strong woman inside of it that made kissing her so exciting. Dropping his eyes to half-mast, Ranma let himself sit and daydream in the afternoon sunlight.

* * *

 

Ukyo was smart and savvy. She was hardworking and loyal. She was even pretty when she put in a little bit of effort, which admittedly wasn’t often. But she’d never been a quitter.

Nevertheless, Ukyo did not want to do this anymore. She didn’t think she could. She loved Ranma Saotome, she always would, but she might have to finally accept that he was not going to love her the way she needed, at least not any time soon. He cared about her as a friend, but she wanted more.

Ever since she’d stopped going to high school to concentrate on her business, her time with him had become smaller and smaller. She had hoped that Ranma would miss her presence and realize that he needed her. That Ukyo was as important to Ranma as Ranma had always been to Ukyo. But it hadn’t worked out that way. He’d even snuck off on some private trip with Akane a few months back, despite her and the Chinese contingent’s attempts to waylay him.

What also scared her was the fact that it wasn’t just him forgetting about her. Sometimes, she’d go days at a time without thinking about Ranma even once. Out of sight was starting to be out of mind. It felt like a betrayal. She was the devoted, sane, nice, cute fiancée whom he had to love, right? But instead, both of them seemed to be drifting apart without any drama except that which she forced upon them.

Perhaps she needed to let Ranma go, as radical and gut-wrenching as the idea felt. It had been percolating in her mind more and more this last year. Maybe she could find some other strategy to grow her honor and happiness, to make her family’s name shine. _Did she really need a boy for that?_ Yet each time he came by one of her restaurants, her heart lifted, the world brightened, and the squeak of stools at the bar in front of the grill became birdsong. But then he’d leave, and the only thing remaining would be dim lighting, a few crumbs from his free food, and a longer line of customers from where she’d gotten behind by focusing on Ranma.

Most of the time Ukyo was proud of the woman staring back at her from the polished surface of her spatula. Dare she even say that she was mostly content with her life? Except when Ranma was there and she caught glimpses of herself reflected off glass and metal surfaces, that desperate face begging for attention was a stranger.

Ukyo did not want to be that girl. Ukyo didn’t like her. She had started to wonder if acting this way was really going to help restore her family honor, or if it was just going to make things worse.

As an experiment, Ukyo tried to imagine having a daughter. It made her smile, until she thought about telling her daughter about what her mother had done to get the affections of Ranma Saotome. The thought made her cringe. In secret, Ukyo had been forced to acknowledge that she wasn’t proud of the person she became when she was trying to force Ranma’s love. Either she was trying to pretend to be some super sweet ideal of the perfect fiancée and perfect friend, or she was acting underhanded, petty, and enraged. She had done some dishonorable things to get Ranma, and with nothing to show for it.

If he ever did ask Ukyo to marry him, he would quickly discover that he’d married a lie. Ranma probably didn’t even know the real Ukyo. How could he? She rarely let herself act real around him. But the more she acted natural, the more he treated her like a distant friend instead of a girlfriend and future wife. Ukyo was a blunt person. She didn’t like feeling or acting this way, but she didn’t know how to stop.

When she let herself feel it, she was disgusted with herself. She wanted to be brave. She wanted to be proud of herself.

Two days ago, Ranma had stopped by at lunch for some free food and to chat. She’d had to nag him ahead of time to get him to promise to come over. It was telling, that he never stopped by to chat unless food was involved. She tried to remember an exception, but the only things that popped up were when he needed help with a fight or when she specifically asked for help. He might have asked her a few times for advice, but that didn’t count because those times were almost always about Akane.

Of course, their conversation this time kept drifting back to Akane too, despite Ukyo’s best efforts.  At first, she’d been grateful that Akane hadn’t been able to come because that meant she got Ranma to herself. But considering that he kept bringing Akane up and seemed really distracted, Ukyo still felt like a third wheel. In fact, it would have been better if Akane had actually been there, because then maybe Ranma would be focusing on the now instead of keeping his eye on the door just in case Akane and her friend changed their minds and decided to come over.

Of course, that didn’t keep him from inhaling three of her okonomiyaki specials. Sure, it was flattering that Ranma liked her food, but Ukyo was more than just okonomiyaki. Had he ever asked about how she learned to work as a miko or about her art? Did he even remember those parts of her?

After Ranma left, Ukyo had found a note written on the back of a folded up receipt. One of her regular patrons had wrapped it around the tip. The note had sported a lot of exclamation marks and underlined words in sparkly purple ink.  Nevertheless, it forced her to ask questions of herself that she’d been avoiding. For the rest of the afternoon, a line from the note kept popping into Ukyo’s head. It asked her to take a hard look at herself and realize that she deserved better than a boy who didn’t even bother to look past a fake smile.

Wiping off the counter, Ukyo wished she could wipe her own troubles away so easily. Ukyo liked Akane, and had some (few) things in common with Shampoo, but Ukyo could never get truly close to either girl with the specter of Ranma hanging between them. It was hard enough making and keeping friends with her schedule so busy, especially ones who knew how to fight. She’d had fun hanging out with Akane a few times, but Ranma was always this huge thing they had to tiptoe around to avoid fighting.

Every time she had tried to force Ranma to be honest about what he was thinking, to admit who he really liked and wanted to marry, he had wiggled out of answering. Well, perhaps refusal to answer was damning all on its own, Ukyo thought, pounding her fist down on the counter angrily. She did deserve better.

“I want to see you be brave,” she whispered out loud to the currently empty shop. It was something her mother used to say when things seemed too tough. It was the almost the last thing she’d said besides, “I love you,” before passing away. Firming her lips, Ukyo dropped the rag back into the bucket and undid the ties holding her sleeves back. She flipped the open sign to closed, flicked off the grill, turned out the lights, and locked up her shop.

Today was the day Ukyo Kuonji reclaimed her pride and sense of self.

Saying a small prayer for strength, she started jogging over to the Tendo Dojo to confront one Ranma Saotome. This time, she left her fighting spatula at home. She was going to be rational and get answers once and for all, and if those answers deserved a beating, she’d deliver it later after she’d had time to plan out a brutally thorough punishment.

Too soon, she was rushing through the gate of the Tendo Dojo. After taking a deep breath, she knocked on the door. Kasumi answered and directed Ukyo to the back porch. Before releasing her, Kasumi gave Ukyo a tea tray with two cups and a gentle smile. Ukyo did her best to return it, though she knew it was a pale imitation at best.

Ranma was sitting on the porch with his back to the house, looking meditatively at the koi swimming in the pond. It looked like he was thinking deeply about something, something that brought color to his cheeks and hooded his eyes. Ukyo hoped that she was on his mind, but knew the likelihood of that was slim. Afternoon sunlight burnished his hair with reddish highlights and emphasized the ripples of muscles on his arms and back. The image belonged on the wall of a museum, with a glass case and million dollar price tag. For a second, he was so beautiful that Ukyo couldn’t breathe.

Turning, he smiled a nice smile at Ukyo, but the intensity faded from his eyes as he cleared his throat. Then he said something in greeting. Those changes only confirmed that it hadn’t been her that he had been thinking about.

“Hey Ukyo, I just saw you on Saturday, did ya need something?” he asked. The question hurt. It assumed that there was no need for him to see her too often.

Dropping a hand to her pocket, she clutched the note in her fist until the folds bit into her fingers. Then she forced herself to breathe in and exhale slowly. Setting the tea tray down next to Ranma with her other hand, she released the note, set her mouth on autopilot, and got herself under control. She could do this.

After a fortifying sip of Kasumi’s superior tea, Ukyo turned to squarely face Ranma and asked, “Will you ever love me?” Darn it, she’d meant to say marry, not love, but if this was to be an honest conversation, perhaps it was just as well that she let her heart ask the questions it needed to someday be whole, one way or another.

Ranma choked on his sip of tea and turned bright red. “U-Ukyo,” he stuttered, putting his teacup down with a clatter.

“Well?” she demanded bluntly.

“Ucchan,” he said helplessly, “you’re my friend.”

“But not your _best_ friend?” she prodded.

Ranma bit his lip, opened and closed his mouth awkwardly, but ultimately said nothing.

Blowing out a hard breath, Ukyo refused to give up. He would give her a verbal answer, one way or another. Glaring at Ranma she forced herself to ask in a low, gravelly voice, “I deserve to know if you love me, if you will ever marry me, or if you have been just stringing me along all these years for free food.”

“No!” he exclaimed, turning towards her and rising up to his knees. “You _are_ my friend Ucchan! I will always care about you, even if you never make me an okonomiyaki ever again.”

“Care, but what about love? Are you ever going to marry me?” Ukyo demanded again, fighting the tears that wanted to rise to her eyes, hoping desperately against hope.

Ranma sat back on his heels, looked into her eyes, took a breath, and finally said softly but firmly, “No.”

“I- I’m sorry, what did you say?” she asked faintly.

“No,” he repeated, “I won’t ever marry you. You are my friend, but that is all we’ll ever be.” Sighing, he looked down and whispered, “I’m sorry, Ukyo.”

Blowing out a shuddering breath, Ukyo focused on the hot feel of the teacup cradled between her fingers, making sure she didn’t tighten her hand too much. She did not want to break the cup. If she just focused on that, she might be able to keep herself from hyperventilating or shattering into pieces. She had that much self-control.

_You are a Kuonji,_ she reminded herself. _Do not dishonor yourself or your family now._   She had wanted answers and now she had them. She should leave.

“Then who do you love,” she asked in an anguished whisper, unable to keep the question bottled up inside. _Stupid, why did you ask that when you know your name will never be the answer to that question? Will knowing really help anything?_

Ranma looked into her eyes, and then he suddenly focused on something behind her. His face shifted towards excitement and his lips tilted into the start of a smile. “Akane,” he breathed.

Standing abruptly, Ukyo took a shaky step backwards as Ranma’s gaze refocused on her. “I see,” she grated out, “I should have known. How long?”

At her words, he flushed and stuttered “I-I didn’t-”, but then he stopped. Sighed.  As Akane’s steps came closer, he glanced down and then back up at Ukyo through those unfairly long lashes.

“From the beginning,” he stated quietly but with conviction, a strangely intense glitter to his eyes that she’d never seen before. Ukyo could guess what it meant though. But it wasn’t meant for her, so she never wanted to see it again. She hated it.

“I see,” she rasped out again as Akane finally reached their side. Ukyo had to get out of here before she threw up, passed out, or gave into a berserker rage and twisted Ranma’s head off with her toes so the agony lasted longer.

“It seems like a day for friends,” Akane said with forced cheerfulness and a strangely awkward glance and blush towards Ranma. “Both Ukyo and P-chan have decided to visit. You’re welcome to stay for dinner, Ukyo, if you’d like.”

Ranma started at her words, glaring at the pig nestled against Akane’s bosom. Akane seemed oblivious to the tension between Ukyo and Ranma, as well as to Ranma’s glare at P-chan. Akane was oblivious to a lot of things. Just like Ukyo had allowed herself to miss all of the clues shouting that she’d never had a chance, that she’d wasted years and tears on this boy for _nothing_.

Ukyo let the hand holding her teacup drop oh so carefully to rest unobtrusively against her side. “I have to go,” she said hollowly. Although she hated Akane in that moment, she hated Ranma and men who took advantage of a woman’s feelings even more.

Maybe it was time for everyone to stop being so oblivious. After all, why should she be the only one having a horrible day? Ukyo paused by Akane’s side, looked into her eyes, and dumped the remains of her hot tea onto the pig snuggled against Akane’s chest.

A naked Ryoga dropped out of Akane’s arms and onto his back at their feet. _Even Akane can’t stay oblivious to **that** , _Ukyo thought vindictively. “I’d say good luck to Ranma and Ryoga… but I wouldn’t really mean it,” Ukyo said into the piercing silence.

“Akane, I’m sorry,” she added. It was only polite. Let them see her exit as graceful and strong. They didn’t need to know about her feelings of heartache and defeat. Perhaps she would be grateful for Ranma’s honesty and her freedom one day in the future, but that day was not today. Turning on her heel, Ukyo left. However, she made sure to carefully place the uncracked teacup on the table next to the front door on her way out.

* * *

 

The people in the garden remained frozen until the click of the closing front door sounded quietly in the backyard. Ranma felt bad about Ukyo, but relieved that the truth was finally out there and she seemed to be accepting it. Hopefully she’d forgive him and still be his friend. However, he’d have to worry about it later. Most of his attention was focused on the tableau in front of him.

He was fiercely glad that Akane was _finally_ going to stop cuddling up to P-chan and realize that her pig was really Ryoga. Ranma had hinted at his identity often enough over the years, but she just never got it. Admittedly, Ryoga had made his piggy self more scarce this last year, but P-chan still popped up occasionally. Sometimes, Ranma felt like he kept doing it just because he knew it was guaranteed to drive Ranma crazy. Well, it was about time he got caught out.

Underneath Ranma’s blaze of satisfaction, however, lurked fear. Akane was going to be pissed, and if he was really unlucky, he might be included in that anger. _She had to realize that he’d been trying to tell her all along though, right?_

Akane looked up from the ground and blinked hard several times. She didn’t seem to care that Ryoga was naked, just that he was human. “Ryoga… is P-chan,” she said hesitantly, staring blankly into thin air. “P-chan is, has always been… Ryoga, a Jusenkyo-cursed Ryoga.” 

Akane glanced down as Ryoga scrambled to his feet, hunched over, and placed his hands over his genitals. “A-Akane, I can explain! I was going to tell you, but I was too embarrassed. This is all really Ranma’s fault, I swear!”

“You bastard, don’t blame this on me,” Ranma growled before turning frantically to face Akane. _He would not let Ryoga throw him under the bus._ “I’ve always tried to get him to stop comin’ round as a pig, and I tried giving you hints, but he made me swear not to tell anyone about his curse before I knew what he was gonna do with it! It was a matter of honor!”

Akane’s voice shook as she looked back and forth between them, “And of course, Ryoga’s _embarrassment_ and Ranma’s _promise_ were more important to both of you than the abuse and _violation_ of _my_ trust and _my_ honor.” Both boys blanched. “I thought you were my friends. I trusted you. But obviously you have absolutely no respect for me or my privacy. A friend wouldn’t do this. But after all, if I was _too_ _stupid_ to figure it out after almost three years, then it must be my fault, not yours, right?” Akane’s hands curled into fists. Her skin had turned a blotchy scarlet, and unshed tears glistened in her eyes. “I may be an idiot, but I can learn from my mistakes.”

Each word Akane spoke felt like a body blow. Ranma had never thought about it like that. He’d thought she’d be mad at Ryoga, and maybe at him, but not hurt and violated. He felt sick. “Akane, I’m sorry,” Ranma pled earnestly. He didn’t know what else to say in the face of her reaction.

“I’m sorry, too,” Ryoga said, hunching over even more as a dark miasma started to form around him, “really, really sorry.”

Akane breathed in harshly. “Yes, I can see that you’re sorry. Sorry you got **caught** ,” she ended her words shouting. Swiping her swimming eyes brutally to prevent any escaping tears, Akane ground out, “Ranma, you can just forget about that talk we were going to have after last night. I’m done with you. Done.”

Turning, she glared and said, “As for you Ryoga, I never want to see you or your pig again! But you better get ahold of yourself right now. A true martial artist is in control of his ki, instead of letting it out like a toddler with a tantrum every time things don’t go his way. Leave before you destroy my house and hurt my sister with your lack of self-control and your selfishness.”

Looking up, Ranma saw that Kasumi had walked out onto the porch. She’d probably come to investigate the shouting. Looking upset, Kasumi stood with one hand held over her mouth.

Practically frothing at the mouth, Akane growled and then bit back whatever else she wanted to say, closing her mouth with a click. She stomped away towards the house. Then, pivoting quickly, she ran back and kicked Ryoga in the balls so hard he soared up over the fence and out of sight with a tortured scream.

Ranma did nothing to defend himself as she stalked over and slugged him across the face. He knew he deserved that and worse. The punch made him stagger, but he kept his feet. “I’m sorry,” he repeated helplessly.

“How could you,” Akane whispered, ignoring his words. “You were my best friend, my fiancé,” she searched his eyes for some answer that he desperately wanted to give her. But whatever she wanted, she didn’t seem to find it. Telegraphing her punch worse than she’d done in years, she pulled back her arm again and hit him hard on his other cheek, knocking him across the yard and into the pond as she screamed, “I HATE YOU!” Then she ran past Kasumi and back into the house.

Ranko slowly stood up in the pond, feeling a hundred years old.  The cold breeze bit savagely through her wet clothes. Looking up, she saw Kasumi glancing back and forth between the dripping Ranko and where Akane had run into the house. “I did not know either,” Kasumi said slowly before meeting Ranko’s eyes disapprovingly. “Your animosity and teasing of P-chan make sense now, of course, but letting this situation with your fiancée go on unresolved for almost three years... there was no honor in that,” she said sorrowfully before turning and striding into the house after Akane.

Wading out of the pond, Ranko went over to the discarded tea tray and picked up the still-warm teapot. She lifted it up to pour over her head, but hesitated. _Everything’s falling apart._ Staring at the tea pot for a moment, Ranko suddenly exploded into movement, screaming out an epithet as she hurled it to shatter into a thousand pieces against the wall. Then the redhead jumped up onto the fence and started running.  Ranko had no destination. She just needed to run until the physical pain in her body eclipsed the pain in her heart.

* * *

 

Several hours later, Ranma realized that even or perhaps especially in his female form, she was in too good of shape to tire herself out just by running. Detouring into the nearest park as she passed by, she veered off the path and threw herself down onto her back on the ground, narrowly missing a bush. Sweat had soaked through her clothes, and Ranko realized with a new surge of depression that the fingernail scratches on her back must be gone, since they weren’t stinging at all. It seemed there was no chance of getting any more kisses or passion marks from Akane any time soon either.

Ranma felt horrible and so sorry. In trying to be honorable, she’d allowed Akane to be dishonored. The older Ranma got, the more she realized how frustratingly complex life was. Things weren’t as black and white as she’d once believed.

Sometimes, there were only two bad choices and you had to try and chose the one with the least bad option. Well, Ranma had made a choice, and it had been the wrong one. That was now glaringly obvious.

Ranko wished she could go back in time to fix things. Though just when she’d need to go to start to fix things was a separate problem, considering how many mistakes she’d made over the years. If she could go back, would she fix this, or would she keep Akane from getting killed even temporarily at Jusendo instead? Or maybe she’d stop herself from getting the sex-changing curse. Heck, why not go back even further and avoid the cat fist? But it was all moot, since she didn’t know how to time travel anyways.

Akane hated Ranma now. What was she going to do? Ranko had said sorry, what else was there? She didn’t know, but if she kept telling Akane sorry, Akane had to eventually forgive her, didn’t she?

As Ranko stared up at the red-tinged clouds above her head, she wondered if she should just spend the night here on her back. It seemed as good a plan as any. Maybe she’d get lucky and some lowlife would try to attack the seemingly lonely girl in the park at night and she’d get to beat the pervert up.

A few minutes later, Ranko vaguely noticed a man and a woman walking down the trail towards her bush. The woman had roan red hair, slightly darker than Ranko’s own. The man was younger, but looked related. Unfortunately, they chose to stop on the path right next to Ranko’s bush to talk. She couldn’t see them anymore, but their voices came through clearly to disturb her sanctuary. _Jerks_. Why couldn’t they leave her alone to wallow in peace?

The young man’s voice suddenly broke through Ranma’s annoyance. “But I said I was sorry and she’s still mad at me. I don’t know what to else to do!” Ranko felt her ears perk up. This could be useful after all.

“Are you asking for my advice?” the woman asked in a comfortable alto.

“Yes, please,” he replied desperately. “I’m at my wits end here.”

“Well, saying sorry is a good first step,” the woman replied slowly, “but try listening to her too. Make sure you both know what you are arguing or sorry about. It helps to ask questions and resist talking about yourself too much. Ask her how she feels, what she needs, if there is anything you can do to make things better. Be honest with her, and then maybe ask if she has any questions for you.”

She paused for a second and took what sounded like a sip of some liquid. “I’ve learned that it is often best to try not to justify my actions unless the other person asks me to, though that one is much easier said than done. Resolving an argument can bring you closer together, can even strengthen a relationship, but only if you communicate honestly with each other about your feelings.”

The man grumbled in displeasure, “That sounds like humbling myself and being weak and emotional. I can’t see Uncle doing that.”

She sighed in exasperation. “Then you don’t know his character as well as you think you do. Where do you think I learned all of this? From our marriage. The closer you are to someone, the easier it is to think of hurtful things to say that will win you points in an argument. But having a relationship isn’t about winning points or about pride, it’s about being with the other half of your soul. Too much pride will ruin a relationship, as will too much silence. You need to decide what is more important to you, your pride or your relationship.”

“I’ll think about it,” he replied noncommittally, clearly still hung up on the thought of humbling himself before his girl. “But we’d better be getting back. It’s getting dark. Let me just toss the rest of this.”

A second later, Ranko was hit in the head by a paper cup, which then splashed her face with lukewarm liquid. It was gross, but just warm enough to turn Ranma back into a man. Mixed blessings, Ranma thought as he scrubbed sticky wet droplets off his face with the edge of his shirt. _Blech_.

When Ranma looked back up, he realized that they were gone. Sitting up, he crossed his arms over his knees and rested his chin on them. Even if the guy wouldn’t use the relationship advice, Ranma would. Tomorrow, he’d apologize again and then he’d try to ask questions and listen to what Akane had to say. If she wouldn’t talk to him, he’d try again the next day, and the next, until she finally gave in and forgave him.

Besides, he was forgetting something important. He still had to figure out how Akane had gotten that scar on her side. Although he had a few guesses, he needed more information to nail it down. It was important that he figure it out soon, so something like that could never happen again. Ranma couldn’t let her start avoiding him, because whatever hurt her the first time might come back.

It also made him miserable to be avoided. There would be no repeat of this winter. He wouldn’t put up with it.

Standing up and dusting himself off, Ranma made his way back home. The house was dark, with only a lamp left lit by the front door. Ranma appreciated the light, since it made him feel like he was still welcome here despite what had just happened that afternoon.

Padding into the kitchen, he grabbed a riceball from the fridge to munch on. Then he peaked into the backyard. The shattered teapot hadn’t been cleaned up, though the tea tray was gone. Ranma winced. That was a bad sign.

Getting out the broom and dustpan, Ranma did his best to clean up the broken shards using only moonlight as his guide. Although almost March, the nights were still cold, and his breath steamed in the air and fogged his eyesight. He’d have to come back in the morning when it was brighter and make sure he’d gotten all of the shards.

Once back inside, Ranma went up to the bathroom and washed up perfunctorily before slipping into his room. His pop lay on his back snoring on the other side of the room. Slipping into his pajamas, Ranma lay down on his futon and tried to fall asleep.

However, he was having trouble. Considering how wonderfully the day had started, this end was horribly frustrating. His mind kept flitting between planning scenarios and apologies to get Akane to forgive him, to anger over the fact that it had taken something like this to make her figure out P-chan, to fear that she would get hurt while avoiding him and then conceal it again. Despite his efforts to quiet his mind, Ranma tossed and turned all night.

On Tuesday, Ranma got up with a great sense of purpose. Despite that, Akane spent the entire day ignoring him, avoiding him, and walking away from him whenever he started talking. It was infuriating, but he forced himself to breathe deeply and keep his temper. He didn’t sleep well that night either.

Wednesday repeated the pattern from the day before. Ranma destroyed several dummies in training that night. He also seemed to be losing his appetite. At dinner, he didn’t even try to take away the last of the fish from his pops. His sleep was plagued with nightmares, but nothing he could recall clearly the next morning.

On Thursday, Ranma finally managed to trick Akane into answering a question about school. Once she’d cracked, he kept at her relentlessly for the rest of the day. Akane got annoyed, huffed and rolled her eyes at his antics, but she reacted and was slowly thawing. Although she’d only talk in short phrases, the important thing was that she wasn’t ignoring him completely.

After school, he managed to herd away her friends and get her alone on the walk home. “So Akane,” he started nervously, “I wanted to say sorry again.” He wiped sweaty palms along his pants. Akane wasn’t looking at him, but she wasn’t stomping away in the opposite direction either, so maybe she’d finally be willing to talk. “I had two bad options to choose from, and I made a choice. I realize that it was the wrong choice. I was wrong.”

Akane still hadn’t looked up from the ground, but she’d turned her head more towards him and seemed to be listening. Ranma bit his tongue to stop all of the explanations bubbling up from his chest. _You’re supposed to get her talking, ask her questions, not babble on justifying yourself, remember?_

“How are you feeling?” Ranma blurted out softly, desperately. Akane’s head snapped up in surprise. As her eyes searched his face, Ranma tried to keep his concern and caring in the forefront of his mind. He really did want to know.

Akane looked down at the ground again, and for a moment he thought he’d botched it somehow, but then she started talking slowly. “I feel angry and hurt.” Twining her fingers in the straps of her bookbag, Akane huffed out a breath. “I feel stupid. I feel like P-chan died, even though Ryoga’s still living somewhere, probably under a slimy rock,” she growled.

Turning towards Ranma, she said fiercely, “Did you know that I let him sleep in my bed? I got changed in front of him. I told him my secrets and my fears, things even my sisters and best friends don’t know. After all, he was just a pig… just my pet pig and I loved him.” She sniffed but shed no tears. Perhaps she didn’t have any left after the last few days. “Now I look back and realize that I was sleeping with a boy all of those times, that I was holding a boy, not a pig, in my lap and against my chest, that I got naked in front of him, that a boy knows and can repeat all of my secrets. Considering how often I kissed P-chan, should I could him as my first kiss? As my first hundred kisses?”

A growl escaped Ranma’s chest. If she kept talking like this, he was going to have to kill Ryoga himself. Ranma was, for the first time, angry at himself, instead of just angry at Akane and Ryoga. He could have stopped this earlier, but instead, he’d let Ryoga get away with doing all of that to Akane. Ranma had never really thought it through.

Hearing her lay it out like that made him feel insane. He wanted to break something, he wanted to let Akane hit him again, and he wanted to stop listening to this. But he didn’t have a choice. If Akane had suffered this, was feeling this, the least he could do was listen.

“He makes me feel unsure, weak and vulnerable. I _hate_ that.” She started walking a little faster, “Sure, maybe P-chan closed his eyes sometimes, or passed out, or chose not to repeat my secrets. But you know what? Those were all choices _he_ made, not me. I had no choice in this. I trusted him and his friendship. Yet Ryoga lied to me for years and stole my privacy. He didn’t even seem to have any real guilt about it, because he just kept on doing it until he got caught. Even when confronted about it, his first instinct was to blame you instead of taking responsibility for what he did to me. In fact, when I think about it, it almost seems more about him having power over you than about not embarrassing himself by having me know his stupid secret.”

Akane paused for a moment and then added, “Plus, the idea that you knew and didn’t tell me makes me wonder what other secrets you are keeping from me, and if I can even trust you anymore.”

Ranma flinched. It had taken all of his control to not go chase Ryoga down and beat him to a pulp after hearing what Akane was saying, or to not let someone else beat him to a pulp. But hearing Akane doubt her trust in him made Ranma feel like she’d just cut open his chest and spit on his heart. He had to fix this. Somehow.

“I feel more violated now than by anything that happened in Oki-,” Akane cut herself off and took a ragged breath. It made Ranma frown and open his mouth to ask just what she was talking about, but she cut him off before he could. “What I’m trying to say is that my whole idea of who P-chan is, or who even Ryoga is, has been destroyed. I mourn that, and then I feel stupid for it all over again. I mean, knowing his self-esteem issues, I can kind of see why he didn’t tell me at first, but keeping up the lie for so long… I have a lot of trouble forgiving that. On top of that, I don’t know why I didn’t realize the truth sooner. I feel so stupid.”

Akane released her bag and let it jerk back and forth at her side. “I think I just try to think the best of everyone and don’t want to see the bad. Well, except for with you I guess,” she sent him a tense little smile, “you’re the exception to a lot of things.” Then she snorted, “And maybe, stupidly, because you seemed jealous and paid more attention to me when P-chan was around.  For some reason I wanted that. Like I said, stupid.” She blew out a breath.

Ranma winced and rubbed at the ache in his chest. “I’m sorry.” He forced himself to keep speaking around the uncomfortable lump in his throat, “But you know what? You were right. I was jealous. I was jealous that you hugged him like that, and that you were nice to him when it seemed like you could barely stand me.” He swallowed before finishing, “You do have my attention though, Akane, all of my attention. Whenever you want it, and probably even when you don’t, it’s yours. It’s always been yours.”

“Oh,” Akane breathed, wide-eyed.

The moment stretched like taffy. Ranma took a step closer to Akane. Their arms brushed. Keeping eye contact, he slowly leaned down as Akane hesitantly began rising up onto her toes.

And then Kasumi turned the corner with her arms full of groceries. They sprung apart. Akane hurried forward and took a bag from her sister. After that, the conversation turned to what they were having for dinner. Ranma didn’t participate much, he just helped carry bags.

He wasn’t sure if he’d been forgiven, but he did feel like he might actually sleep tonight. It might take some time, but his relationship with Akane was on the mend. At least he had that.

That night, Ranma was brushing his teeth before bed when he looked up in the mirror and saw Akane hovering behind him in the doorway. Quickly spitting out his toothpaste, he turned to face her. “Did you need to use the bathroom?” he asked.

Akane twisted her fingers in the hem of her shirt. “No,” she took a deep, fortifying breath. “I need to ask you one more question before I can sleep tonight.”

Ranma tried not to look too stupid as he wiped foam off his chin and lips. It probably wasn’t a question about if he’d give her a goodnight kiss, but Ranma wanted to be prepared for anything, just in case. He could dream.

“I need to know if you are keeping any other big secrets from me, Ranma. You mean too much to me and… I want to trust you, to let you in, but I don’t think I can take another revelation like that.” Akane looked so small and vulnerable as she stood in the doorway with her fingers hidden within her shirt. It sent a pang through Ranma’s heart even as his spirits soared hearing her say that he meant a lot to her.

“No Akane, of course not. You can trust me, I promise!” Then, taking a risk, Ranma dropped his toothbrush in the sink, stepped forward, and pulled her against his chest in a hug. He made sure to keep his grip loose, letting her know she could pull away at any time.

Yet instead of pulling away, Akane tucked her head against his shoulder, slid her arms around his back, and squeezed hard. Ranma allowed his arms to tighten around her gratefully as he dipped his head and buried his nose in her hair. Breathing in her scent, he allowed his arms to rub up and down her warm back. At first the hug was meant to soothe Akane, but it did just as much if not more for Ranma to touch and hold her in his arms. It was perfect. She was perfect.

But they were hugging in an open doorway and anyone could walk by and see. All too soon, they regretfully began separating. Daring once last time, Ranma leaned forward and dropped a kiss on Akane’s forehead. Then he finally let her go and stepped back.

“Goodnight, Akane,” he whispered.

“Goodnight, Ranma,” she whispered back with a small, secretive smile. Then she turned and disappeared into her room, closing the door softly.

Retrieving his toothbrush, Ranma finished up. Then he went to bed, hiding his face in his pillow to keep his beaming smile hidden from his pops. He was sure he’d have good dreams tonight.

Several hours later, Ranma woke up with a gasp. He clearly remembered his dream this time. He wished he didn’t.

Akane had been lying on her back in a green clearing, and at first he thought this was going to be one of those fun dreams. But as he got closer, he realized that her face was pale, her body cold, and her chest barely rising and falling with each slow breath. He watched as another Ranma ran up and used Ki to manipulate the knotted collar of spiritual energy around her neck and reinforce the threadbare knots remaining there. As he watched, a blob of light was pushed from the Ranma’s body down the cord and into Akane’s. The Ranma’s body looked dimmer after that.

Then suddenly he was in the Tendo bathroom again. Akane was standing in the doorway looking up at him with those big, liquid brown eyes. “I need to know if you are keeping any other big secrets from me, Ranma. Are you?”

The dream froze. Cat fist Ranma slunk out from behind Akane and hopped up onto the counter. “You… are an idiot,” he drawled in disgust. Then he kicked Ranma hard in the chest, sending him crashing into the wall. That’s when Ranma woke up.

Needless to say, he didn’t sleep very well after that.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was going to stop it after Ukyo’s scene, or maybe after Ranma threw the teapot, but then I decided that that was kind of mean after the last chapter. If you listen to music while reading, I found The Civil Wars very apropos for much of this chapter.
> 
> The conversation overheard in the park was inspired by Cordelia Naismith Vorkosigan in Barrayar by Lois McMaster Bujold. I didn’t want to plagiarize though, so I made sure not to glance at that scene before I wrote up the woman’s advice. Because of that, it is a lot less eloquent. I went and reread 'Cordelia’s Honor' last week just for fun. I appreciate it so much more now that I am older and a mother myself.
> 
> Speaking of which, my second child, a baby girl, is due in Sept. The birth of my little boy a few years ago is the reason this story got derailed for so long in the first place. But we are on the downward slope now, with everything gaining momentum.
> 
> Thanks for reading and giving me so many great comments!


	30. Sex Ed in the Park

Friday morning, Akane woke up with a smile on her face. It felt better than waking up on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday morning, when she’d immediately started examining her interactions with Ryoga, feeling depressed, getting nowhere new, and miserably cycling through bad emotions like a hamster trapped on a wheel. Ranma keeping it a secret from her and her disregard of his hints would pop up in her mind too, like her running hamster was being pelted with rocks.

But today was different.

This morning she felt better. She felt… _safe and cared for._ Akane couldn’t think of a better way to describe it. Clearing the air by talking to Ranma yesterday had helped. That hug last night had also done a lot to make her feel better.

On top of that, she’d had some of those cat fist dreams about Ranma again. They’d been strange but good. Last night, the dreams had been disjointed flashes of different times and places, but they all had one unifying theme. In every dream, cat fist Ranma had been doing everything in his power to protect her.

Only the first dream had been a little unsettling. It was a repeat of that strange dream she’d had while sick in Okinawa. The one with the three aspects of Ranma – man, woman, and cat – forcing her back from the gates of death to live again. She’d mostly forgotten about it until the dream last night reminded her. Akane still didn’t know what it meant, if anything. She’d woken briefly after that one, disturbed, but had quickly fallen back to sleep.

Unlike that first dream, the rest of them were much more pleasant. They were also all familiar. The dreams ranged from cat fist Ranma saving her from enemies and dangerous situations, to his cat side trying to ‘save’ her from suspicious socks and plastic bags. It was funny that her mind put all of those memories into Ranma’s perspective instead of hers though. Whatever the case, the dreams simply reminded her that no matter his mental state, Ranma would go to extreme lengths to protect her.

The reminder made her feel better about what he’d done. He wasn’t perfect, but neither was she. It was a mistake, but she could get over it, because in the end there were more important things. Deep down in Ranma’s core he cared about her. _He cared a lot._ Akane hugged that knowledge to herself.

As Akane got dressed, she couldn’t help but notice the envelope sitting on the top shelf of her closet. She’d glanced at it every day since putting it there over a week ago, but had yet to pick it up again. She knew its contents. The envelope held all of the sex ed pamphlets she’d picked up at the women’s clinic for Ranma.

Akane was torn. There had been so many awkward conversations in the last week that Akane didn’t know if she wanted to risk another one right now. But Ranma had humbled himself enough to apologize to her and had even asked about her feelings. That was pretty big.

Plus, she had promised herself that she would talk to him about this no matter what. She cared about Ranma. He deserved her protection too. If that protection came in the form of information, then she needed to give it to him.

Considering that he was willing to have uncomfortable emotional conversations right now, this might be the best time to corner him. If she waited too long, the machismo could surge up again and make it difficult to get him to agree to listen. Besides, her own conversation with Miaka tomorrow might get her so distracted that she’d keep on putting this off for months. It needed to happen today.

Firming her lips, Akane decided to ask Ranma to meet her for a conversation after dinner. She’d ask him at breakfast, so she couldn’t chicken out later. Then, after their talk, they’d have the whole weekend to avoid meeting each other’s eyes.

* * *

 

Despite the insult and warning from his cat side, Ranma still didn’t want to tell Akane about the Ki tie he’d forged between them. However, he knew her should do it anyways. Several times during breakfast he found himself opening his mouth and starting to say something, but each time he veered off into another topic, commenting on the food or weather instead.

Finally, he accepted that while he probably needed to tell her at some point, he was going to put it off as long as possible. Akane looked so calm and content this morning that he hated to ruin it by bringing up something difficult. She was just barely speaking to him again. Forgiveness was fragile, and he didn’t want her mad at him again so soon. At this, a little voice in the back of his mind mocked him for being a coward and whispered that he was going to regret not telling Akane while he had the chance.

However, the cocky side of his mind boasted that it’d be fine. She hadn’t even noticed the tie, and it wasn’t hurting her, so it wasn’t that big a deal. Maybe in the future Ranma could even come up for a reason to pretend to make a Ki tie with her, like when they got married, and then if anything happened he could date it from that. Pleased with his plans, Ranma forcefully shoved away the memory of the warning and ignored his feelings from the night before as he finished his breakfast.

On their walk to school, Akane walked close by his side. Ranma walked next to her instead of up on the railing. That way, their fingers could occasionally brush together as they walked. They talked of random, inconsequential things. It made Ranma feel warmly content.

After they passed the canal, he noticed Akane fiddling with the edge of her coat nervously. Then she asked, “Hey Ranma?”

“Yeah?” he replied, slightly cautiously.

“I was wondering if we could go for a walk to the park after dinner,” Akane asked.

“It’s still a little cold for walking around after dark,” Ranma said before his brain could catch up to his mouth.

She fidgeted. “That’s what coats are for. I have something I need to talk to you about, and I don’t want to do it at home where our fathers could walk in at any moment.”

“Oh, right,” Ranma said. He wondered what she wanted to talk about that hadn’t already been said, but he guessed he’d have to wait until tonight. Maybe she wanted to talk about making their engagement official, maybe even set a real wedding date? Could he be that lucky? “Sure, Akane,” he answered with more enthusiasm. “We can sneak out after dinner, no problem.”

“Great,” she said, before turning the conversation to other topics until they reached school.

* * *

 

After dinner, it was ridiculously easy to sneak out. Akane told Kasumi she was leaving while Kasumi was washing the dishes. Her sister gave her a vague reply and returned to singing along with the radio. Their fathers were drinking and playing a game with the TV on in the background. They probably wouldn’t even realize that anyone was missing before they passed out.

Akane had noticed that the two men had started drinking and carousing more heavily lately. Both men were probably unhappy about their impending separation this summer when the Saotomes finally moved back in with Mrs. Saotome. The dads might just be trying to cram as much ‘fun’ in as they could while they had time.

However, Akane suspected it wasn’t quite that simple. From what she could tell, Mr. Saotome seemed almost afraid to move back in with his wife (not without cause). Then there was her father and the approaching anniversary of Akane’s mother’s death at the end of April. Her father always did get worse in the spring. It made Akane sad, so she tried not to think about it too much.

Although she loved her father and even Uncle Saotome, she didn’t have a lot of respect for them anymore. Sometime in the last few years her father had fallen from his pedestal. She would always love him, and she knew that he loved her, but it hurt that she couldn’t rely on him for very much. Not only was he not perfect, he usually wasn’t even very competent. He lived in the glory of the past instead of dealing with their problems in the present.

As Akane had struggled to master her temper, she’d realized that one of the biggest things that frustrated her about her father was that he let his negative emotions control him. If he was angry or sad, he immediately acted upon it without thinking things through. It had crippled him, and soured his relationship with his daughters and his martial art. This realization had made Akane even more determined to learn to control herself. When she had a family one day, she would do her best not to repeat the mistakes of her father, or the myriad mistakes of Mr. and Mrs. Saotome.

Akane had meant to sneak past the living room without a word, but just then her father let out a belly laugh. Glancing over, Akane saw his head tipped back and his dear face creased with laugh lines. Love swelled up, swamping her critical thoughts, and she couldn’t help but walk over and drop a kiss on his forehead.

He opened his eyes and smiled up at her. “What was that for?” he asked with a smile.

“Just because I love you,” Akane said.

“My little girl,” he began with eyes starting to swim, but before he could get going, Mr. Saotome shouted at something on the TV and distracted him. Both men jumped to their feet and began yelling at the referee on screen.

“See you later, Daddy,” she said quietly as she stepped back into the hall and opened the closet door to get her coat. She was starting to get nervous about the upcoming conversation. When she went to close the closet door, a hand suddenly grabbed it out of her hand, making her jump.

“Sorry,” said Ranma, “I didn’t mean to startle you. I just need to grab my coat too.”

Stepping back, Akane told herself to calm down. She checked inside her purse to make sure she’d grabbed the envelope of pamphlets. Then she slipped on her shoes and waited for Ranma by the door. He quickly joined her and they left the house.

As they walked in silence towards the park, Ranma began fidgeting.  Lacing his fingers behind his neck, he looked at her sideways and finally asked, “So what did ya wanna talk about?”

“Let’s wait until we get to the park,” Akane demurred. That put if off for a little bit longer at least. Her palms were sweating. She didn’t know how to start this conversation. It had been so much easier in her head when she was mad and annoyed at him.

Finally they reached the park. Akane walked them over to a semi-enclosed pavilion a few twists off the main path. You had to walk up a few steps to get inside. In the middle of the peaked roof hung an electric lantern.  It had two walls of solid rock and two walls of iron filigree railings. Stone benches lined the walls. Luckily the pavilion retained some heat from the recently set sun, and the lantern light cast a further warm glow. _It was almost, dare she think it, cozy._

At least until she looked out, and noticed the strange and menacing shadows cast on the grass and trees by the lantern light creeping out through the iron filigree.

“So, Akane?” Ranma’s voice trailed off inquisitively as he sent her an encouraging little smile and wagged his eyebrows. He was so cute sometimes. It just made it more difficult for her to start.

Akane drifted over to the railing on one wall and traced a metal vine with her fingertip. “Right, well…” she stalled. “Um, did you ever have one of those maturation seminars in elementary school?”

“Matur-what? I dunno, we moved around so much that I never attended much elementary school. So I probably missed it. Why?” Ranma asked. “Is it important?” He looked very confused.

Swallowing, Akane tried again. “What about a health class in junior high, you took one of those, right?”

Ranma scratched his head. “Was it required? I don’t know, maybe I did. I can’t really remember. Though I might have tested out or something since I know all about first aid and anatomy from training with my pops.”

A smile quickly appeared as he added, “I remember that there was this old fogey at a dojo down in Shikoku who Pops got to teach me muscles, bones, and nerves. He always smelled like stale crackers, for some reason, but man was that guy crazy smart. He was super strict during the lessons, and would swat my arms and legs with a switch when I didn’t answer fast enough, but afterwards he’d always let me have some of his wife’s bean cakes. Man, I haven’t thought of him in years.”

Huffing in frustration, Akane walked over to one of the solid walls and leaned back against it with a thud. “Just as I suspected.”

“Um, Akane?” Ranma said, “What is this all about? I thought you wanted to talk about our relationship.”

“Oh,” she breathed guiltily. Is that what his little smiles all day had meant? Well drat. Maybe they could instead… but no. She had to finish this or she’d never get up the nerve to try again. “Not exactly, but this is sort of about what happens in a relationship…” she trailed off again.

Blowing out a sigh, she forced herself to begin again. “You know how knowledge is power and ignorance is weakness during a fight? Well some things recently have made me worried that you are missing some important knowledge.”

“About an opponent or technique?” he asked suspiciously as he crossed his arms.

“Sort of,” Akane said awkwardly. Suddenly frustrated at herself and the roundabout conversation, Akane reached into her bag and opened the envelope. Then she strode forward and thrust the pamphlets into his hands, “Here.”

“What are these?” he asked as he looked down and began fanning them out. Then he froze. Only his eyeballs moved as he looked up at Akane, looked down at the pamphlets, and looked up again with a suddenly beet red face. “Wh-wh-what? Wh-wh-why?”

Suddenly, Ranma unfroze, crumpled the pamphlets in his fist, and scuttled back until he was up on a bench with his back pressed against the wall. His eyes jerked back and forth, looking for escape, but he’d scurried in the wrong direction and had accidentally put Akane between him and the exit. “I don’t wanna and you can’t make me.”

“Ranma,” Akane sighed as she rolled her eyes at his childish dramatics. Taking advantage of her distraction, Ranma leapt up on top of the iron railing on one wall. He was about to fling himself out into the woods and escape!

_Oh no you don’t_ , Akane thought. Lunging forward, she grabbed hold of his pigtail just as Ranma lifted one leg to leap out. With a grunt of effort, she flipped him back inside and slammed him onto the ground. A puff of dust and a few dead leaves rose up from the impact.

Ranma lay spread eagled, groaning. “You are one mean gorilla of a woman,” he grunted as he rose creakily to his feet. Akane scowled at his comment. Rubbing at his tender scalp, he began dusting himself off. Then he seemed to realize that he was dusting himself off using the crumpled sex ed pamphlets.

“Gah!” he yelped as he threw them into the air and hopped back, hands extended in defense. “I ain’t reading those! Besides, half of ‘em are about girl stuff. I’m a guy! I don’t need to know about things like _that_ ,” he spat in disgust and embarrassment.

Akane’s crossed her arms and huffed. _He was so exasperating!_ “Yes you do,” she demanded. “Can you honestly tell me that you know the basics of sex ed and about preventing STDs and using birth control? You didn’t even know what a woman’s period was until a few months ago!”

Pacing back and forth between the walls like a caged animal, Ranma yelled back, “I’m not stupid. I know enough! I wouldn’t sleep with a girl who had an STD so I don’t need to worry about getting one. And girls get pregnant, not guys, so the girl takes care of the birth control stuff. Guys don’t have to worry about that.”

Akane caught her breath at the rage invoked by his idiotic words. “Well newsflash, Ranma. You can’t just sense if a person has an STD or not. STDs can be hidden, and even good people can get them. And as for the girl being the one responsible for getting pregnant or not,” she forced herself to ask, trying to give him the benefit of the doubt before she continued biting his head off, “is that your opinion, or are you parroting your father?”

Ranma flinched and looked away. “Pops always said,” he mumbled before trailing off. He crossed and uncrossed his arms uneasily.

Huffing in disgust, Akane continued. “Well, we all know how wise and _honorable_ his advice always is. If she ends up pregnant and destitute, or disowned by her family, at least it won’t inconvenience _you_ , right? Never mind the effect on her and your unwanted, fatherless child. You would just continue on your merry way.” She waved her hands in the air sharply.

She paused to suck in an angry breath and then continued. “Of course, not all scenarios would be so convenient for you. What if a girl like, oh Shampoo for instance, slept with you trying to get pregnant, and then went to your mom with the news, saying that honor demanded you marry her and return to China because of the child? Or what if someone drugged you to get you to sleep with them? What would happen then? Think for a minute Ranma!”

Ranma flinched again, but he seemed to be actually listening and thinking. The silence stretched. Ranma shifted, sat down on a bench, stood up again, began pacing, and then finally stopped. He looked longingly at the dark woods outside before glancing up to meet Akane’s eyes. “I- I suppose I haven’t ever really thought about it before. I never even thought about kissing a girl until we moved here, much less other stuff. It didn’t seem important, and I was too busy training.”

Looking away from her eyes, he shrugged uncomfortably and continued, “Although I wouldn’t want to be trapped into marriage like that, I would never abandon a child of mine, no matter how it came to be. But I wouldn’t just sleep with some random girl, and I wouldn’t sleep with Shampoo. You should know me better than that.”

Taking a breath, Akane tried to get herself to calm down. “I thought I did, but then you spouted that ignorant, arrogant crap about not taking any responsibility for sex, and it forced me to wonder if I know you as well as I thought I did. I thought you were a responsible man, Ranma. Someone I could rely on, someone I could even have a relationship with. But being responsible doesn’t just mean accepting the consequences when they come, it means avoiding the actions that cause bad consequences in the first place. How can you do that when you don’t have the knowledge to even recognize which actions are which?” she plead.

Firming his lips, Ranma nodded once sharply before crouching down to pick up the scattered pamphlets. “All right, I get your point. I’ll read the stupid things.” He frowned darkly as he gathered them up before standing again. “There, are you happy now,” he grumbled.

Akane crossed her arms defensively. “I didn’t give you those to make you feel bad or to score some kind of points. This is awkward for me too, you know! But I did it because you’re my best friend and I worry about you. This is information you need to know whether we end up together or not. To be honest, there was a lot of stuff in those that I didn’t know myself,” Akane offered humbly.

“We’re 18 now, Ranma. In a few months we’ll be graduated from high school. We aren’t kids anymore. It is time for us both to start acting like responsible adults. This is part of that.” Pausing, Akane just watched him for a moment, letting her words sink in.

“Besides,” and suddenly Akane’s mouth ran ahead of her brain, “it seemed like you were about ten seconds from picking me up and throwing my down on my bed the other night. It doesn’t make me feel special to know that if I’d gone along with it, you would have taken your pleasure and then blamed any consequences on me. I guess you’ve never given any thought to protecting me or keeping me safe in that way.” She gulped a breath and looked away, shocked at her audacity. _Why had she said that out loud? Stupid, now he’s going to get mad again!_

But he surprised her. “Akane,” Ranma said helplessly. “Akane,” he repeated more steadily, “look at me.” She glanced up into his eyes. She expected more squirming, but he suddenly seemed very serious. “Your safety and happiness are extremely important to me. Your protection is more important to me than my own.”

Akane sucked in a surprised breath at his words. “I am serious,” Ranma said in reply to her reaction. “Ignorance is my only excuse for what I said before, but I’ll fix that. Ok?” Akane relaxed slowly and gave him a nod and small smile. Both of them released a breath of tension and just sat in silence for a moment.

Then Ranma surprised again her by sending her a wry, flirtatious grin. “Besides, even in my ignorance, I know enough to not want to just _take_ my pleasure from you. I only want to share it – the pleasure, that is. My responsible side is glad we never made it to your bed and thus avoided any problems, and my honorable side says we should save that for marriage anyway, but the rest of me is doing its best to drown out those two by demanding I kiss you everywhere you’ll let me get away with at the first opportunity.” His smile turned into a grin as he ducked his head shyly, “I mean, if kissing is still on the table.”

Blushing, Akane felt her heart begin to race as she grinned back at him. “I could be persuaded to grant you some _limited_ access. If you can prove that you deserve it,” she teased as she stuck her nose into the air haughtily.

“Oh, I think I can be persuasive enough,” Ranma flirted back as he began stalking forward slowly.

A quick gust of wind blew through the pavilion, and Akane felt something flutter against her ankle. Looking down, she saw it was one of the pamphlets on birth control options for girls, including the morning after. It acted like a cup of cold water in the face, reminding her of why they were here. Scooping it up, she bit her lip and offered it to Ranma.

Glancing down at the title, Ranma took a step back and raised his still paper-filled hands. “Nuh uh. I’ll read this stuff here, but that one’s just about girls. I don’t need it.”

Akane felt her good mood plummet. “Yes, you do,” she replied with weary displeasure. “We just talked about this. You need to know about all this stuff.”

His face took on a mulish cast. “There is no reason I should ever need to know what birth control options are for girls. I’m a guy. It’s not relevant.”

“It is! Not only will you be with a girl, but you also _turn into_ a girl. That especially makes it relevant!” Akane rebutted. _He was such a stubborn idiot!_

Ranma jerked back and his face screwed up in disgust. “That’s gross! Don’t even joke about that. No guy is ever getting his junk anywhere near my girl side. I’d castrate him first.” He skirted her jerkily and began walking quickly towards the doorway, allowing shadows to darken his unhappy face as he fled the lantern light and conversation.

“Ranma,” she started, but he interrupted her before she could martial any more arguments.

“No! I said I’d read the rest of this stuff and I will. I’ll take it seriously. But I’m a man. Nothing like that is ever gonna happen, so _leave off_ , Akane. We’re done here.” He shoved the wad of pamphlets into his pocket and fully turned his back to any more of her words.

As she watched Ranma walk down the steps of the pavilion, Akane felt her chance disappearing. Yet he needed this information for his girl side too. It was important. Maybe important enough to actually tell him about the things that happened in Okinawa. That incident was what prompted her to start this conversation in the first place. She had to do it. She had to explain. Only the truth would get him to stop now.

“But it did!” Akane yelled at his dimly lit back almost swallowed by the blackness of the looming trees. “It did almost happen! In Okinawa, last fall. That’s why.”

Ranma paused. She could barely make out the muscles of his shoulders tensing in the darkness. Then he swiveled and stalked back up to the pavilion. Stopping in the entryway, he braced his hands on either side of the doorway and loomed, trapping her inside as he skewered her with a hard look. “ _What_ are you talking about,” he demanded, white lines of tension bracketing his mouth.

Gulping at the slightly wild look on his face, Akane forced herself to tell the story she’d been hiding from him for months. “Last fall, when we were kidnapped in Okinawa, we both got knocked out by that purple smoke. Remember?”

At his sharp nod, Akane continued. “Do you remember anything from when you first woke up, or from before we got rescued?” She couldn’t bring herself to just blurt it out, as much as she wanted this over with. The words were hard to pry forth, as if residing in a bog of sticky muck deep in her mind.

Ranma huffed and then said, “I woke up on a boat first and started to fight, but they put some sort of wet cloth over my face and knocked me out again. Then I maybe woke up for a second in a room with you? That part is pretty foggy. But I remember waking up later in a cave at dawn. You were asleep in the back. I wasn’t aware for long, as a bunch of cats showed up and knocked me into the cat fist.” His eyes lost their focus as he seemed to search his memory. “Then there’s a flash of waking from the cat fist in a building with people fighting, but pretty soon another darn cat showed up and knocked me out of it again. Then I woke up on your sick bed at the women’s monastery. You were sick from being in the water and the stress.”

Suddenly, Ranma’s eyes focused sharply as he looked at her and finished, “At least, that’s what I thought at the time. Why don’t you tell me what really happened, Akane, since you seem to be implying something else? What did I miss?” He did not look pleased. In fact, he looked like he was ready for a fight, suspiciously relaxed and standing on the balls of his feet. As she tried to get her words in order, she saw him looking at her side, the one with the scar.

“When I first woke up,” Akane started haltingly, handing him her side of the story carefully, like something fragile and liable to break if dropped. _Or maybe she was the one liable to break_. Shaking off her dark thoughts, Akane decided to jump right into the deep end. “I was tied up and gagged on the floor of a room. You were tied up too, and unconscious. A man was crouched over you, trying to pull your pants off, but luckily your new belt was too tight.”

Despite her best efforts to stay detached, she felt her eyes lose their focus on the pavilion as her memories rose like a tidal wave, towing her under the waters of memory back into that horrible room. She could practically taste the mustiness of the gag in her mouth and feel the pounding of her sore head. “I tried to jump up to help you, to stop him, but I was thrown back onto the floor by another man. My head hit the floor so hard it dazed me. I couldn’t even struggle as my skirt was pushed up out of the way. Then the man standing over me started to take off his pants, and the man over you began cutting your belt off. I managed to find the strength to fight the first man off, but then the one trying to rape you jumped up and stabbed me with his knife. Everything hurt. I wanted to give up, I felt so awful, but I had to protect you. You were still unconscious. I couldn’t quit. Somehow, I managed to find the strength to knock him out too.”

Akane felt the breath dragging fast and heavy in her lungs as she relived those tortuous moments. “During the struggle, I’d knocked over this chest and a dirty black string fell out. There was something wrong with it, something strange. I fell on top of it after the fight and bled all over it while I was cutting off my ropes. When I finally managed to get up, I went over to you. You wouldn’t wake up at first, and then the string became a rope of pearls, and I wanted to put them on. There was something swimming inside them, little pink forms that I woke with my blood. It sucked in all of our spilled blood, I think, but mine the most. It liked mine best. It needed more. I wanted to pick them up and put them on. The pearls were so beautiful, and they needed me so badly…,” Akane trailed off, hypnotized by the memory of them, seeing them so clearly in her mind, as if they hung suspended in the air before her now. She felt as if she could touch them if she just reached out her fingertips.

“Akane, Akane! Snap out of it!”

Suddenly, someone was shaking her, and Akane broke out of her memories to find Ranma roughly digging his fingers into her arms as he shook her hard. His face was almost white and he looked sick to his stomach. When he saw her focus on his face, he released her and took a couple of steps back.

“Are you okay?” he asked shakily.

“Oh, yeah sorry,” she said as she rubbed her face briskly. That memory had been much stronger and more disturbing than she’d expected. Maybe the monks had been right when they’d warned her not to talk about the pearls or the demon, but it was too late now. She had to finish the story now that she’d started.

“Where was I?” she asked before answering herself. “In the room about to escape, right. Well, you woke up for a minute and then passed out again. I got you tied up on my back and we escaped to the river, leaving the pearls behind. I grabbed onto a log and floated us downstream until I found that cave where you woke up. We got attacked by those Iriomote cats, and you fought them off. Then a boat of male monks came down the river and picked us up. I directed them back to the fortress to rescue the female monks, which your cat side helped with, and then we all left the Island to go back to Okinawa. You know the rest,” Akane finished quickly and succinctly.

“So when I woke up and you were sick,” Ranma asked lowly, choosing that out of everything to focus on right now, probably because everything else was too horrible, “it was because the cut in your side was infected. Not because you had caught a cold from the stress of being kidnapped.”  His nostrils flared as he breathed in angrily. “You lied to me,” he snapped.

Akane shrugged uneasily and looked away. “I didn’t lie. I never said why I was sick. I just never corrected you when you made assumptions. I didn’t want to talk about it.”

“Why not?” Ranma demanded harshly as he loomed over her.

The threat in his posture was too much, and Akane snapped back with her own anger, “Because! I didn’t want to talk about it because I _still don’t know_ if I was raped or not! I’ll never know! We were both unconscious, and I never did find my underwear. It was gone when I woke up. It’s a horrible memory, complicated by those evil demonic pearls. Unlike you, I didn’t have pants and a belt on, and I wasn’t blissfully unconscious through the whole thing either. There was no one to protect me, so I had to protect myself and you as best I could!”

Sucking in a deep breath, she continued. “So don’t you _dare_ take that tone with _me_. I’m telling you about it now, and I’m giving you the tools to deal with it if something like this ever does happen to your girl side. No one gave those tools to me. I had to go and find them by myself. So don’t you dare throw away my help and act the victim here. I kept you from being a victim, I kept your girl side from being raped while you were unconscious, and I’m trying to make sure you stay safe if, god forbid, something horrible like this ever happens again.” Akane glared at him fiercely.

Ranma jerked away from her and began stalking back and forth across the room. She could see him almost physically pulling himself together. “Right, sorry, right. You did protect me, and I failed to protect you, and that’s what this is about and,” he sucked in a deep breath and suddenly bent over, face going white as he braced his hands on his knees and stared at the ground. Concerned, Akane was jerked out of her anger.

She was about to step forward and touch his shoulder when he jolted back up and said, “I’ll be right back. I promise. Just give me a minute and don’t go anywhere, okay?” His voice was strained and his eyes burned with some strong emotion as they bored into Akane’s. “Wait here. Please.”

“Okay,” she answered hesitantly, cowed by the emotion lurking behind his tortured face. As if her word had been a trigger, Ranma sprang from the pavilion like an arrow shot from a bow. He stumbled to a halt at the edge of the trees, bent over, and was sick to his stomach. Then he lurched upright and started running again. Akane quickly lost sight of him in the black night cloaking the forest. For the first time, she noticed her breath steaming in the chill night air. Shivering, she wrapped her arms around herself and tried to rub some warmth back into her body.

_Had she made a mistake telling him about Iriomote Island? What was Ranma thinking right now? What was he doing?_

Her questions became at least partially answered when an enraged scream suddenly split the silence of the park. Birds and bats shot into the air and leaves crackled as flustered animals ran for cover. Several booms and cracks sounded next, accompanied by strobes of light which dimly lit up the canopy of trees in the distance. Ominous silence reigned for a few seconds. Then more sounds of destruction.

Finally quiet descended again, followed by the sound of groaning wood and a cacophony of splintering crashes, rustling leaves, and alarmed animal calls. When the echo of falling trees finally stopped, the wood held absolute silence, as if hiding from further destruction. She could only imagine how many trees Ranma had just destroyed.

Akane strained her eyes, trying to look for Ranma, but she couldn’t see anything in the darkness. The moon either hadn’t risen yet or was smothered by clouds, and starlight was no match for the looming canopy of trees. After a few minutes, the crickets slowly began calling again, and a lone owl hooted.

Finally, a minute or two after that, Ranma coalesced out of the blackness between two trees. He paused for a minute, face and form still mostly shrouded in shadows, and something kept Akane from calling out to him. Finally he moved, walking slowly like an old man back into the lantern light.

Stepping up to the base of the stairs leading into the pavilion, Ranma stopped and looked up at Akane where she hovered above him in the doorway, one hand pressed to her chest. A red flush rode high on his cheeks and his knuckled were bruised and bloody, but his face was controlled and his voice held a steely calm. “I have a few more questions, if that’s alright?”

“Of course,” Akane said, stepping back awkwardly to let him into the pavilion. She didn’t know what to say now. Obviously what he’d just done in the woods was off limits.

It was getting a little cold to stay out talking much longer, but he didn’t seem to notice the temperature. Considering the uncertain state of his emotions, she didn’t want to bring it up. Sinking down onto one of the benches, she dug her hands into her pockets and waited for him to talk.

Ranma went to the bench on the opposite side of the pavilion. On the way he picked up the birth control flier from where Akane had dropped it on the ground and folded it up carefully before putting it in his pocket.  Placing his hands on his thighs, Ranma turned and sat down.

“You mentioned in your story a set of demonic pearls. Do you know anything more about them? What I mean is, are they something we need to watch out for?” Ranma tilted his head at her inquiringly.

Biting her lip, Akane tried to figure out how to answer his question. “The monks said I should probably be alright if I stay away from Okinawa, demons, and demonic objects, at least for now. When I talked to the female monks about the pearls, Sachi, a monk specializing in spiritual disorders, read my aura. Based on some things I overheard in the place we were held, we think it might be a cat demon influencing the pearls. Sachi said that it looks like I do have at least one, if not more, entities infesting my spirit in ways they shouldn’t be, and in ways that could be dangerous for me, but she’s not an expert on demonic possession. I sort of vaguely mentioned that part to you in Okinawa, if you remember,” Akane paused and waited for him to nod. He had a strange look on his face, like he’d just realized something awful, but this whole night was probably awful for him so she didn’t bother worrying about it.

Akane continued her explanation, “You said it might just be all of the crazy things we’ve run across over the years lingering in my aura. That’s what I’ve been hoping ever since, at least, though that’s probably blind optimism.” Akane chuckled darkly, and then forced herself to stop before she got hysterical. “Sachi went in and choked off as many outside influences as she could find, but she said she couldn’t get everything. I’m not supposed to really talk or think about the demon part too much or else it could draw the demon’s influence and weaken my spirit.  She’s out researching it now, and then she said she’d come and see me to try and fix the rest of it. To be honest, I’d hoped to see her before now, but she hasn’t shown up yet.”

Ranma leaned forward and frowned. “Do we need to try and contact the monastery again for you? Or get some other people working on this?”

An unhappy frown twisted Akane’s face. “Sachi did call to check in a couple of months ago, but she didn’t have any news. The monastery called me this week and said that they haven’t heard from her in a few weeks. I haven’t mentioned it to anyone because I didn’t want to make the problem with my spirit worse, but I’m just about out of patience myself. I was going to finally confess to Dr. Tofu, but then he had to run out of town. So far I’ve been mostly just trying not to think about it. If there are any demonic remnants in me, at least they don’t seem to be doing anything that I’ve noticed.” Though after saying that, Akane began wondering about her dizzy spells.

Standing up, Ranma began pacing in the limited space. “I wish I’d known about this from the start,” he muttered. Then he glanced her way and said reassuringly, “But I know now and I’ll do my best to keep you safe, Akane. I can start asking around for you privately and see if I can find us any help. Maybe that Monkey Priest who helped us with the oni possessing Kasumi will know something. I’ll see if I can track him down. I won’t let anything bad happen. Not if I can help it.”

All of a sudden, Ranma stopped pacing and gripped the base of his braid, tugging hard. He was facing away from Akane, so she couldn’t see his expression. Concerned, she leaned forward.

Ranma took a deep breath and then blow it out. “Akane, there’s something I need to tell you. I should’ve mentioned it earlier but,” he turned around nervously. Then he yelped, “Gah!” and jumped forward, pulling her up off the bench and twirling her away towards the opposite wall.

“What? Ranma!” Akane shrieked in surprise.

He put her back down on her feet. “Rats,” he said, gesturing towards where she’d been sitting with a grimace.

Looking back, Akane saw that the bottom of the bench was lined with at least ten mangy brown and black rats, with several more hanging by their claws from the iron railing right behind where her head had been. Their beady little eyes were all focused on her. Shrieking, Akane leapt up off the floor and into Ranma’s arms, winding her arms tightly around his neck.

“I hate rats!” she squeaked. The rats started chittering as they wound round and round each other in the shadows. Several more rats appeared at their call, climbing up on the outside of the railing and scurrying inside.

Ranma wrinkled his nose. “Let’s get out of here.” Tucking her more securely against his chest, Ranma jumped over a rat waddling across the floor and loped out of the pavilion. He held her the whole way home, not giving her a choice, and if his grip was a little tighter, and his face a little fiercer than usual, Akane didn’t comment on it.

They separated at the house without a word. There had already been enough said tonight. Akane crept up the stairs to her room, emotionally exhausted from the evening. Once inside, she quickly changed clothes and then went straight to bed. She couldn’t wait for this day to be done. As she finally started to fall asleep, she thought she heard something rustling in the room, but sleep dragged her down before she could do anything about it.

 


	31. The Shrine Prophesy and Ranma Exposed

Ranma’s sleep that night was non-existent. In a week of horrible nights, tonight was the worst. He was starting to forget what a good night’s sleep looked like. As he tossed and turned and stared at the ceiling revealed by the weak starlight and reflected street lamps, his mind churned over the horrible revelations he’d learned.

Now he knew how Akane had been hurt. To think that he was there in the room, useless, unconscious, and practically the reason she’d gotten so hurt in the first place. He was humbled by the lengths Akane would go to protect him. Humbled, but not surprised.

However, Ranma wished she would value herself a little bit more and him a bit less. He hated, loathed, and despised that horrible things happened to her because of him. He wondered if he should leave, get as far away from Akane as he could to protect her from being hurt again. But then he remembered the threat currently looming and realized that he could never leave her, at least not any time soon. Abandoning her now would just make things worse.

It also made him physically ill to think of his girl side almost being raped, of Akane potentially being violated while unconscious. She was so strong. Ranma never would have guessed that she’d been worrying about such things the last few months. He’d always thought of Akane as straightforward, someone who wore all of her emotions on her face, but now he realized that she had hidden depths. Hopefully, Akane would give him the chance to get to see a little more beneath her surface.

The protective part of him wished that he’d been the one wearing the skirt and she the pants, so she wouldn’t have to live with that horrible uncertainty. However, a small, scared part inside was selfishly grateful that it hadn’t been him. Just the thought of almost being raped while unconscious made him want to crawl out of his skin. He didn’t know how he’d function if it had actually happened. Maybe Akane really was stronger than him, at least in this.

He owed Ryoga big for the gift of that puzzle belt. Maybe after they fixed Akane’s soul, he’d find a way to get her to forgive the pig. Right now, however, was definitely too soon to bring the lost boy up to her.

As for the possible demon possession, Ranma felt tortured with uncertainty. If only it were as simple as an exorcism. He wondered if his roping her back from death had been what made a simple cure impossible. Ranma hoped not. _Had the tie he’d forced on Akane made her more susceptible to a demon? When he’d discouraged her from worrying about it to protect himself, had he inadvertently kept her from pursuing a cure? And were those demonic pearls the source of the dark entity he felt watching them sometimes, creeping through their bonds?_

Ranma had to tell her the truth about those Ki bonds, and soon. He’d made a mistake, concealing them from her for so long. It had been selfish and cowardly.

If Ranma truly wanted to be with Akane, it would have to be as full partners. She would obviously accept nothing less. His attempts to protect her, to keep her safely to the side only for himself, and to keep back unpleasant truths, had failed. His plans had all failed. Ranma needed to stop underestimating Akane.

Although he could only see the uselessness of his actions to date, Ranma could change. Tomorrow was a new day. He would do his best to keep her safe from now on and to find her a cure. And if that cure necessitated cutting the bond he’d forged with her, if it was the only way to protect Akane from a demon, then he would do it. It would feel like cutting off a leg and having to learn to walk all over again without the extra support, but he would do it. For Akane.

When the light of dawn finally started creeping up into the room, Ranma blinked his dry, scratchy eyes and got up quietly. Fetching his coat from the closet downstairs, he slipped on his shoes and went outside. His breath steamed in the chill air, but he ignored the discomfort. In the shadows next to the house his footsteps crunched quietly on frosted grass, but in the open yard his steps were silent. Spring was less than a month away, after all.

For a moment he hovered in the doorway of the dojo, trying to find the momentum to go in and start practicing, but he came up empty. Raking his fingers through his bangs, Ranma turned and with a running leap jumped up onto the roof instead. He crouched for a moment to make sure he couldn’t hear any reaction to the gentle thump, then he walked over to the eaves above Akane’s window. Sitting down cross-legged, he focused on the thrumming line of energy connecting her so close by and watched the sun rise. After several minutes, he almost felt something like peace.

However, when he went to stick his cold hands into his pockets, he didn’t get very far. His pockets were full of pamphlets from the night before. Ranma groaned and rubbed his face. The almost peace was shattered. He really didn’t want to have to read those, but he had promised.

Swallowing thickly, Ranma braced himself and decided to just get the pain over with quickly, like tearing a bandage off a wound. Closing his eyes, he put his hand in his pocket and pulled out the first thing he touched. Then he cracked one eye open and looked at the cover sideways. It read, “How to protect yourself.” That didn’t sound too bad. Ranma let himself relax a bit. _At least it’s not a super girly one,_ he thought with a small sigh of relief before cracking it open and starting to read.

An hour later, he’d finished reading all of the pamphlets. He hadn’t moved from his spot on the roof. Ranma felt like his head was going to explode and his face would be permanently red. He really had been ignorant or wrong about a lot of this sex stuff. It was a bit overwhelming. But hey, at least he knew it now, right? He really hoped that most of it wouldn’t be necessary. Was it really so wrong to want to figure out the rest of it with a partner instead of from a piece of paper? He didn’t think so.

When he heard Kasumi calling everyone down for breakfast, he finally stirred himself. Slipping back into the house, he hung up his coat. Then he strolled into the dining room and sat down without his usual verve.

Taking a gulp of his hot tea, he sighed as the heat began thawing his core. He definitely felt out of it right now. Akane looked a bit rough this morning too. Luckily, Pops and Mr. Tendo seemed content to hold up the conversation.

“By the way,” Mr. Tendo said, turning to address the table at large, “I heard some scurrying in the walls last night. I think we might have an animal burrowing in there. I’m going to try and put some traps out to catch it, so be careful where you step for a few days, clean up any droppings you come across, and don’t leave out any food.”

“Yuck,” said Akane with a wrinkled nose.

After breakfast, Ranma went and washed the dishes for Kasumi. The thought of dirty animals infesting the walls of her home and pooping on her clean floors had left her with unhappy creases on her brow. Ranma hated seeing Kasumi upset. Plus, he was trying to apologize for the shattered teapot and her disappointment in him over the Ryoga situation. She seemed appreciative, and had even gifted him with a small smile when he offered to clean, which made him feel a ton better. Anything but a smile on Kasumi’s face seemed just plain wrong.

Once he finished the dishes, Ranma went out to the dojo for some serious practice. He needed to stop moping. His pops joined him for a little while, but after about an hour, peeled himself off the ground with a groan and retreated off somewhere else. Ranma kept on going for an hour after that, but then he began getting a nagging feeling that something was off.

All morning, he’d kept a small tether on Akane to monitor her for his own peace of mind. While he’d practiced, his attention had wandered and his sense of her had dissipated. In the months since he’d fortified the bond, it had been easy to keep at least partially a partial bead on Akane. Only recently had it started getting more difficult to maintain.  Frowning at himself, Ranma quickly reestablished the connection.

As he felt down along the bond, he realized that Akane was no longer in the house. In fact, she wasn’t nearby at all. Bringing up his mental map of the city, Ranma calculated that she must be in one of the older, less populated neighborhoods littered with shrines, temples, and bamboo forests. _Why would she go out there, and without even mentioning anything at breakfast?_

Concerned, especially after the revelations of the night before, Ranma wiped his face with a towel. Then he left the dojo. Grabbing his jacket and wallet from the house, just in case, he made sure to casually ask Kasumi if she knew where Akane had gone.

Flipping through a cooking magazine, Kasumi barely looked up. “Hmm? Oh, she went to go and visit an old friend, Miaka.”

“Miaka?” Ranma repeated in surprise. _Why did that girl keep popping up? Was she really harmless, or was something going on? What if it wasn’t coincidence that Miaka tried to get close to Akane right when this demon thing was coming up?_

Kasumi looked up with a vague smile from her magazine. “Yes, she lives at that big shrine with the nice pond and flowering trees. They were very close when they were younger, but haven’t hung out much in recent years. She’ll probably be there through lunch, but I’m sure she’ll be back by this afternoon, if you needed something.”

“Hmph,” said Ranma.

“Did you?” asked Kasumi.

Ranma creased his brow. “Did I what?”

“Need something,” Kasumi clarified.

“Oh, no, I’m fine. Never mind,” Ranma mumbled. “Thanks,” he threw over his shoulder as he turned to leave the room.

“Sure,” she replied with a soft, knowing smile before returning to her reading.

Letting himself out the door, Ranma began jogging towards Akane and this shrine. He didn’t remember ever going there, but it probably had lots of places to conceal himself. He’d just sneak in and spy on them for a bit to make sure Akane was fine. If nothing nefarious was going on, he’d sneak back out and then ‘accidentally’ run into Akane outside so he could interrogate her about Miaka as he walked her home.

* * *

 

Akane decided to leave the house while Ranma was busy sparring with his dad in the dojo. The night before had been full of heavy conversations and emotional intensity. It had worried her how wrecked Ranma had looked this morning. It wouldn’t surprise her to learn that he hadn’t slept at all. She’d been dealing with this all for months, while Ranma had just had it all dropped on him yesterday.

Unfortunately, the upcoming conversation with Miaka promised to be unsettling too. Akane decided to give the poor guy a break. She’d go alone, and then tell him about the prophesy stuff in a few days after he’d had time to process things.

Since she’d left the house early, Akane spent about an hour wandering aimlessly. Most stores were still closed, except for the breakfast shops. For a while she window shopped, but it didn’t hold her attention for long.

Soon she turned towards a bamboo grove near Miaka’s family shrine and just walked. Akane had the path to herself. Breathing deep of the crisp air, she silently observed the variegated sunlight drifting through the branches.  Several small houses and dormant gardens hid among the trees, revealed as she curved around small hills and descended into little valleys. It was nice. Serenity suffused her mind and her anxiety receded. Rejuvenated, Akane left the bamboo grove and made her way over to Miaka’s shrine.

Once she reached the top of the steps outside the shrine, she went down a small side path that led toward the family’s private home. Although Akane hadn’t been here in years, she still remembered the way. The door was opened only a few seconds after she knocked.

“Akane, thank you for coming,” Miaka said, stepping forward to give Akane a quick hug. “My aunt is going to join us, if that’s okay?”

Akane hesitated, not sure she wanted an audience for this new prophesy. But then she realized that the older woman might be able to help them figure out what to do with it. “Sure, that’s fine.”

Slipping on her shoes and jacket, Miaka led Akane back outside and around the corner. “I told her to meet us in the meditation pavilion. I thought it might be a soothing setting for our talk. I set up some cookies and tea for us too,” she added with a quick smile over her shoulder.

They walked to a small outbuilding surrounded by winter-dormant bushes and a small pond. Inside the door, they slid off their shoes and unzipped their jackets to hang on hooks on the wall. The inside of the building was pleasantly warm and filled with golden sunshine. Akane took a moment to admire the lovely painted scrolls hanging on the walls before moving to sit down on a cushion.

Miaka handed Akane a pale cookie and started their tea, then sat down herself. “Auntie?” she called towards an open storage room door.

“Just a moment,” came the muffled reply. Less than a minute later, a woman in her 30s came out with eyes the same color and shape as Miaka’s. Her features were too strong to be called pretty, but something about the combination was so striking that Akane couldn’t help but think her beautiful. Although her bun looked intricate and tidy, dirt smudged high on her cheekbone and across the bridge of her strong nose. “I was just exploring the extra scrolls and books in storage. Your father said I could borrow any that took my fancy, since they haven’t used anything back there in years and we recently lost a few of ours to fire damage.”

Smiling at her Aunt, Miaka stifled a chuckle and then said, “That’s fine, but my friend Akane is here and your face is all covered with dust. Really Aunt Yamaguchi, what kind of person do you want Akane to take you for? Do I need to get Dad to give you the lecture on appearances?”

The woman rolled her eyes, sat down, and plopped an entire lemon cookie into her mouth (though admittedly they did just melt on your tongue in sugary splendor). Then she dipped the tip of her napkin into her tea and scrubbed her face clean as she chewed. After swallowing, she meticulously wiped her fingers off before tucking in a few stray bits of hair.

Then she flowed off the cushion into a kneeling position and performed one of the most elegant bows Akane had ever seen. Sitting up again, she arched an eyebrow at Miaka and then smiled regally at Akane. “My name is Yamaguchi Natsuko. It is a pleasure to meet you, Tendo-san.”

Miaka laughed in delight at her Aunt’s one-upmanship.

“Oh,” Akane breathed in surprise before fumbling into a return bow. “The pleasure is all mine, Yamaguchi-san. Please, call me Akane.”

“Then you must call me Aunt Yamaguchi,” she ordered before returning to her cushion and relaxing back from elegant stranger into someone’s friendly aunt.

Introductions completed, Akane was allowed to relax for a few minutes as they ate their snack and chatted of inconsequential matters. Miaka’s Aunt was younger than Miaka’s parents, and seemed to share a lot of Miaka’s sense of humor. The woman obviously loved her niece too, based on the way she gently smiled and teased. It relieved Akane to know that Miaka wouldn’t be going to live with some humorless taskmaster who would look down on her and stifle her spirit.

As soon as the last lemon cookie was eaten, Miaka said, “I think I’m ready to start now, if you are.”

Clutching the warmth of her teacup in suddenly cold hands, Akane did her best to smile. “Sure, let’s hear it.” Maybe Miaka would have seen something to fix Akane’s problem.  It would be nice, but Akane wasn’t going to count on it. Bad news seemed a lot more likely, lately.

After looking at her aunt briefly for support, Miaka opened up. “I don’t remember all of the first prophesy I gave you in the train station, just that you should avoid purple smoke and that looping was important. It still is important, I think, maybe even more than before. The most vivid thing I remember saying is that warning about looping. Remember, for the mother, looping is the only hope. You’ve already looped back. Accept the loop between, remember to loop forward.” She paused and bit her lip before continuing. “I’m not sure if you are the mother or someone else is, someone you need to help. Oh, and despite my pregnancy, I’m certain that the mother it talks about isn’t me.”

“Just as well,” her aunt said. “You have enough problems without being at the center of a prophesy, no offence Akane.”

“Of course,” Akane replied faintly. She didn’t want to be at the center of a prophesy either.  It still creeped her out to think of how Miaka give that prophesy in the train station while cutting painful circles in Akane’s hand with a sharp fingernail.

“Unfortunately,” Miaka began again, “the prophetic dreams I’ve been having lately about you don’t make much sense either. Aunt Yamaguchi helped me meditate on the dreams so I’ve got the gist of them, at least, but I still don’t know what they mean or how they’ll help. Hopefully you’ll know better than I do.” Her voice dwindled to silence.

After a moment, Aunt Yamaguchi spoke up. “Maybe you should tell her about your dreams, and then we’ll all try to figure out what they mean.”

Miaka blushed. “Right, sorry. Well, it starts on a cheery note and just gets better, so here goes. You’re going to die again, and it is going to happen before your 19th birthday. I’m not sure how soon… it could be in the next week or on the stroke of midnight on the day before you turn 19. But you have to die again. There’s no escaping it. However at that moment, you’ll have two choices. One path will send your soul to the demon plane for eternal torment. The other will bring you back to life. If you choose to come back to life, there will be a price. Someone you love will die, along with an unknown number of others, most of them strangers. In the end though, this will help you to defeat a great evil.”

“Isn’t there a third choice?” Akane begged.

“No, I’m sorry. Not that I know of,” Miaka replied. “When this choice comes, it’ll be sudden. Forces will be pushing you towards eternal torment. You’ll be tempted to give in, to save the life of the one you love. Don’t.”

Miaka sent Akane a fond look. “For most people, this wouldn’t be a problem. They’d try to save themselves. But you’ve always been different Akane. Your instinct isn’t to save yourself, it’s to help others.” She shrugged and looked away with a furrowed brow. “This might be a moot point anyways, since the evil I sensed might be too strong. This choice might be taken from you. But if you are lucky and good and strong, you’ll make the choice and allow that person to die for the greater good. ”

“Do you know who it is? Who I will have to allow to die?” Akane asked helplessly.

Grimacing, Miaka shook her head. “No, I’m sorry. I just know that it is someone you love. That’s it.”

This was worse than even her most cynical of imaginings. Rubbing at the throbbing in her left temple, Akane tried to figure out what it all meant. And if she isolated herself from her family and friends, could she stop loving them long enough to protect them? Was it even possible to turn love off and on like that?

“I’m sorry Akane, but if there is any way we can help, we are here for you,” offered Aunt Yamaguchi. “Miaka has told me a little bit about what happened to you in Okinawa, but I was hoping you could tell me a bit more. Maybe I’ll have some more ideas about what’s going on and how to get on top of it.”

Throwing back the last, bitter dregs of her tea, Akane set down her cup carefully. Then as succinctly as possible, she told about her trip with Ranma to Okinawa, the kidnapping, the possessed necklace, the cat-man, and the women at the Martial Arts Geometry Shrine. She finished with Sachi’s reading of her aura, finding possible demon influence, and her intention to do more research up north at a library. Although she’d told the story several times now, it didn’t seem to get any easier. Hopefully, she could stop telling it sometime soon.

Aunt Yamaguchi sat back and tapped her finger on her lips, staring off into space. “Can you tell me a little bit more about this monk Sachi? What she looked like and what exactly she did when manipulating your Ki?” She focused back on Akane and leaned forward.

Akane hadn’t expected questions about Sachi, of all things, but nonetheless answered as best she could. After describing the woman, she added, “but she didn’t do anything special to examine my Ki. As far as I could tell, she just had us breathe together and then she touched several of my chakra points. I could feel a bit of her energy as it moved over me, but that was about it. I got the feeling that she didn’t know a lot about demon possessions, though she did study spiritual disorders.”

“Ah,” Aunt Yamaguchi breathed as she moved back onto her heels. “That might explain it, poor woman.”

“Explain what?” asked Miaka. “Why is that important?”

Frowning, Aunt Yamaguchi answered slowly. “Because I think I’ve met her. A few weeks ago, a woman came to our shrine to see some of the books in the library. She said that she was affiliated with a monastery down south, but I found her behavior … erratic. I couldn’t say why, but something with her seemed off. Nevertheless, she merely sat in the library and quietly read, so I relaxed my guard and became distracted by our family problems.”

Miaka looked down shamefully, but her Aunt paused to pat her hand comfortingly before continuing. “Then a couple of days later, Sachi brought a book of matches into the library and tried to burn it down.”

Miaka and Akane gasped in shock.

“Luckily one of the girls working for us had agreed to secretly meet up with her boyfriend that night in the library, and they managed to raise the alarm and put the fire out before it got too bad. Nevertheless, Sachi destroyed several very valuable scrolls and books, most of them on demon lore. My husband managed to knock her out when she tried to escape in the chaos. I examined her carefully the next day, and found her aura tainted with demonic influence. A demon taint is different from possession. Something had hooked onto the outside of her spirit and slowly poisoned her mind, probably influencing her actions by giving her impulses that benefited the demon’s agenda at the same time. Slimy filaments were threaded over the entire surface of her aura. It must have taken months to get that bad, but by the time I met her she had become thoroughly corrupted.” She paused to let that sink in.

The tea and cookies in Akane’s stomach churned unpleasantly.

Grimacing, Aunt Yamaguchi wet her throat with a sip of tea before continuing. “We tied her up securely with rope, but she was passed out so we didn’t worry too much about her. We thought we had time for an exorcism later. Then we went and salvaged what we could from the wreckage. But when we came back at lunchtime, she was gone. Her bonds had been raggedly torn, almost as if some small animal had gnawed through the ropes to free her. We passed the word around in the local community, but no one has seen her since.”

Focusing on Akane, she said, “I think that the demonic possession she sensed in you was real. I think that in her ignorance, she didn’t protect herself correctly and accidentally became tainted by the demon when she was manipulating your Ki. After this much time, I don’t know why you aren’t a corrupted demon vessel yourself. There must be something unusual about you.”

Akane opened and closed her mouth a few times before answering. “I- I don’t know. I’ve been hoping it wasn’t really a demon, but just remnants of the crazy supernatural stuff I’ve run into over the years. I’ve been working on my self-control and trying to meditate more. I’m still me, I know that, not some demon with evil impulses. But I don’t know why, if I was really corrupted by those evil pearls.”

Steepling her hands over her lips, Aunt Yamaguchi examined Akane for a moment before asking, “Do I have your position to do a deep scan of your Ki?”

Fear swooped over Akane.

“But Aunt Yamaguchi,” Miaka protested.

Akane, however, was louder. “Won’t that just cause you to be tainted too? I don’t want anyone else to get hurt because of me!”

Shaking her head, the older woman sent them both quelling looks. “Calm down girls. Unlike your monk Sachi, I’ve been training most of my life in how to manipulate both my own and other people’s Ki. I know how to safeguard myself from spiritual intrusions and leeches. I’ve also participated in several exorcisms and cleansings involving demons. There is no danger to me from merely examining Akane’s core.”

Although she still felt uneasy, Akane finally gave her consent. This whole thing was becoming too big for her. She didn’t have the knowledge or experience to deal with this on her own. She needed help, and this was it.

After going outside for a moment, Aunt Yamaguchi came back with a handful of dead leaves and a few small green buds. “Miaka, attend to this,” she ordered. “You’ll need to learn this and more when you come to live with me. I’m going to go with a more elaborate protection ritual, just in case.”

Then she breathed softly over the plants in her hands. Her lips moved in a voiceless prayer. Pausing, she spit on them. Then she chanted something softly that Akane still couldn’t understand and blew on the plants. Again she spit, and then blew a third time. Akane suddenly felt a light breeze stir through the room and ruffle the ends of her hair.

As she watched, the leaves slowly plumped and turned a rich dark green, with the buds unfurling into small pink flowers. Gaping, Akane began rising up to her knees. Smiling softly, Aunt Yamaguchi gestured Akane to stay seated as she placed the leaves and flowers carefully around her in a pattern. Aunt Yamaguchi tucked the last blossom inside her shirt underneath the strap of her bra, so it rested above her heart.

Stepping in front of Akane, she knelt down. “Miaka, come and place your hand on my shoulder. Observe my aura as I examine your friend,” she ordered.

“Yes, Auntie,” Miaka replied softly, seemingly also impressed by her Aunt’s display of power.

Once everyone was in place, Aunt Yamaguchi placed her hand on Akane’s diaphragm and took Akane’s hand to place it on her own. It only took a few seconds for their breathing to synchronize. Akane focused and made sure to cycle energy from the earth to the crown of her head. Their hands slipped down to their sides, but their breathing remained synchronized. She could feel Aunt Yamaguchi poking and pulling at her Ki, but she didn’t want to make things more difficult, so she focused on just staying calm.

Suddenly, Aunt Yamaguchi frowned and muttered. “Now how did that happen? This part’s older and not demonic at all. Looks painful and sloppy, whoever placed it, but healed over now. Hmm, it’s probably too integrated to pull out. Drat.”

Akane had no idea what she was talking about, but it made her nervous. Hopefully, she’d explain soon.

“Okay, so there are two threads escaping out of this mess, not just one. How come?” The older woman bit her lip and squinted her eyes. “Can you see what I’m looking at Miaka?”

“I think so,” Miaka answered hesitantly, “but only when I focus on where you are first. It keeps slipping out of sight behind the other stuff.”

“Yes, they are pretty slippery and good at concealing themselves, but you should be able to see them without chasing after my trail. We’ll work on that later. However, based on my experience, I can tell that this one here belongs to the demon. The other one belongs to some other entity, something complex but not demonic. I’m not quite sure…” she trailed off and pursed her lips. “Hmm, it looks like it’s vibrating, as if something is tugging on it. I wonder what would happen if I did this?”

Outside, someone yelped, and then the door slammed open to admit an angry Ranma Saotome. “Just what are you doing to Akane, you old bag? Leave her alone!”

Aunt Yamaguchi cocked her head and looked back and forth consideringly between Ranma and Akane. Then she reached out and flicked her fingers just in front of Akane’s throat. She was looking at Ranma when she did it though, so Akane looked that way too.

Ranma flinched and stumbled back a step. Then his face got red as he took a menacing step forward. “I said stop it, before I make ya! Leave Akane alone!”

“Ranma,” Akane scolded, “she’s just reading my Ki, trying to help me out. She’s not hurting me at all. Don’t be so rude!”

Aunt Yamaguchi smiled at Ranma, but the smile made Akane uneasy. It showed too many teeth. “Well isn’t that interesting,” she said.

Standing up, Aunt Yamaguchi began circling behind Akane, bringing Miaka with her. “So Ranma, you’re Akane’s fiancé, and martial artist too, right?” she asked as she gently pushed her niece to stand against the back wall of the room, as far from the brewing confrontation as possible. Then she turned and strolled up to Akane’s side and placed her hand on her shoulder. “Did Akane agree to have that done to her, or did you conveniently forget to ask?”

_What was she talking about?_ Confused, Akane looked up at Aunt Yamaguchi and then back at Ranma, who had stilled and gone silent.

“No, she never did agree to it, did she,” the older woman answered herself, her voice creepily pleasant. “Does she even know about it? Or have you hidden it from her? Hmm, that seems more likely. A big, bad fighter like you, you’re probably used to getting your own way. I bet you spy on her and parasitize her energy, and then bank on her trust in you to leave her confused about where you suddenly came from and why she feels so dizzy and tired. Does everyone else have to leave her alone so you can have her all to yourself, is that it?”

Ranma shook his head in denial but stayed silent. His face was white, his mouth pinched, and his eyes looked wild around the edges. Akane felt every muscle in her body tense. _This was bad._

“Well, Ranma? Where are your protestations about Akane now?” Aunt Yamaguchi asked with a suddenly vicious tone.

When Ranma looked down and away, Akane felt her heart drop into her stomach. “R-Ranma please,” Akane begged into the heavy silence of the room, “what is she talking about? You didn’t do anything to me, right? Right?”

It sounded bad. It sounded like secrets and betrayals and Akane didn’t want to believe it of Ranma, not of him. He wouldn’t do that to her. Not again, not after she’d asked him point blank after the outing of P-chan’s secret.

“It- it’s not what it looks like. You’re making it sound all bad and stuff,” he defended with a glare at Aunt Yamaguchi.

“Then what exactly _is_ _it_ , Ranma?” Akane demanded tightly. “Explain it to me.”

“It’s just, you weren’t breathing. You were dying and about to leave me forever, so my cat side somehow figured out how to use the remnants of energy from all of the crazy stuff that’s happened to me over the years to tie you to this plane, to collar you here to bring you back to life. It was a shot in the dark that miraculously worked. That’s all. It was just to bring you back to life, to save you,” Ranma said, his voice begging her to understand.

Aunt Yamaguchi cut through his words, “But you didn’t just tie her to this plane, did you? You somehow tied her to yourself. You cut open her soul and forced yourself in there, binding her to you, claiming her life force for your own.”

A whimper escaped Akane’s mouth. “It was real,” she whispered as she remembered the dream, the one about being collared by the three aspects of Ranma. It had really happened. He really had collared and leashed her. “You lied to me,” she accused with anguish

“I just wanted you to be alive,” he defended himself desperately. “At first it was an accident, but it worked! Isn’t that all that matters? I didn’t even understand what the tie was at first or how I’d done it; just that it was there and it connected us, that I could sense you through it. I’d never use it to hurt you. I just wanted to protect you, to keep you safe.”

Jumping on his words, Miaka interjected from the back of the room, “What do you mean _at first_? You said that twice. Did you do something else to her?”

Clenching his fists, Ranma sent her a death glare before looking back at Akane uneasily. “Back in Okinawa, when I went down to the men’s temple, they taught me a few things on manipulating Ki and being more in tune with your spirit. I figured out that the tie between us was secured using the cat fist part of me. Then I felt someone messing with it, and you sort of disappeared from my senses. I panicked and ran up to find you. When I finally did, you were lying in a field all cold and pale and barely breathing! You looked half-dead! So okay, I used my new Ki techniques to find the fraying tie between us and reinforce it. Then I pushed energy down the tie to make sure you were okay. It worked,” he emphasized sharply. “You woke up, regained the color in your face, and seemed fine. That’s why you got healthy so quickly when we got back home too. I kept sending you energy down our link.”

“But you never took energy from me like she said, right?” Akane asked for clarification.

Ranma hunched his shoulders guiltily. “Not on purpose, but I did a few times accidentally in the beginning. It hasn’t happened in a long time though!”

“Oh, well, that makes it okay then, right? As long as you haven’t done it recently. What else can you do with this tie between us?” Akane asked hollowly.

He laced his hands behind his back and began pacing. “I can usually sense where you are in town pretty accurately, though that goes in and out. It helps me to find you sometimes, like today. It also lets me know if you are okay or not. Nothing super specific though, I promise,” he added at the look on her face. “My cat side controls most of it, and he wouldn’t spy on you like that.”

“Is that supposed to be comforting? How can I trust anything you say, how can I trust _your promises_ after this?” Akane demanded.

Ranma flinched and stopped pacing. “No, come on, please Akane,” he begged. “Please don’t think like that.”

Aunt Yamaguchi looked between the two of them and then pointed to a spot on the floor. “I think you need to sit down and explain everything you ever did to manipulate this spiritual tie between the two of you. Don’t leave anything out, as her life could depend on it.”

With a look of despair, Ranma dropped down and gave a halting explanation of when and how he’d used the tie between them without Akane’s knowledge. It felt like betrayal and rage and sorrow all at once, but Akane swallowed it down. She needed to know everything before she could figure out where to go from here. If her breathing was a little elevated during the discussion, and she had to sit on her hands to keep from flinging them around his neck to choke him to death, or over her own ears to stop from hearing the evidence of his betrayal, then that was no one’s business but her own.

When Ranma finished, Aunt Yamaguchi started talking again. “I accept that what you did stemmed mostly from good intentions, Ranma, but you shouldn’t have done it. It was a violation of not only Akane’s spirit, but of the natural law of the universe. Once might be forgivable, but the second time you can’t claim ignorance. If you’d only gone and talked to one of the monks first-,” she cut herself off and looked away, taking a deep breath.

After a moment, she continued. “Akane told us that the monk Sachi pinched down on the outside influences attaching to Akane to protect her from the demonic influence. This should have worked. The demonic bond was new and fragile. It might have withered and fallen away, especially considering the distance. But by forcefully undoing Sachi’s work to re-establish your bond with Akane, without any knowledge of the situation, you made things worse.”

Ranma gulped audibly. “What do you mean? How did I make things worse? I was just trying to help!”

Aunt Yamaguchi sighed and turned to look at Akane. “When Ranma looped his energy around you again, he had to crack open your spirit to give himself room to get inside to knot a new collar. The demon followed his trail, using the spiritual energy looping between you to start taking over. In other words, the demon has used the threads Ranma tied inside Akane like train tracks to travel in and out of her core. The pieces of Ranma inside Akane are, not surprisingly, possessive and ferocious. They’ve slowed down the demon’s advance, but it is only a matter of time now. The demon is so knotted with both Akane’s life-force, and with Ranma’s tie to her, that there is no way to extricate either of them easily. Cutting out Ranma, while tempting, would be disastrous. It might deprive the demon access to you, but it would also create a dip in your core spiritual energy that would lead to your death before it could naturally recover. Right now, I just don’t know how to fix you,” she finished somberly.

The weight of all this information was almost crushing. Akane felt tears prick at her eyes. _None of this was fair. None of it!_

“Then I’m doomed?” Akane asked out loud.

“No!” Ranma interrupted fiercely. “We’ll find a cure somewhere else and you’ll be fine! There have to be other experts. Don’t give up, Akane!”

Miaka slipped up and hugged Akane around the shoulders. “Auntie may not know what to do now, but she’s smart. We’ll figure this out before it’s too late.”

“We’ll certainly do our best,” Aunt Yamaguchi said. “You can start coming by three times a week to meditate with us and for lessons on Ki defense and manipulation. It will help slow the demon’s corruption. I’ll also reach out to my husband and some other friends to see if they have any ideas. We’ll also look up cat demons in the histories, and methods of fighting them.”

“I’ll ask around too, talk to everyone who might know something,” Ranma offered.

“Having other people ask around for you instead of doing it yourself might be wise,” Aunt Yamaguchi told Akane. “Speaking of the cat demon and his pearls, or focusing on your encounter with his corruption in Okinawa may draw his attention and give those invading tendrils more strength. Distance from both the demon and his servants is also a huge help here. I’d stay as far away from Okinawa as you can for now. The closer you are, the faster the corruption will spread. Also try to avoid feral cats, as a cat demon can use them as spies. Domestic cats are probably fine, but you might want to avoid those too just in case.”

They discussed only a few more plans before breaking up. Outside the pavilion, Miaka and her Aunt turned towards the house, while Ranma and Akane turned towards the steps and exit gate. The couple walked through the shrine grounds in stony silence. Akane wished Ranma would just disappear. She had nothing to say to him that wouldn’t end in screaming.

“Akane, please,” Ranma broke into the tense silence. “Please don’t be mad at me. I’m sor-.”

“Don’t!” Akane interrupted him. “I don’t want to hear it right now, Ranma. Just shut up,” she concluded viciously.

But Ranma ignored her and kept going. “You have to understand, I just wanted to keep you safe, Akane. That’s all! You have to understand.”

Akane growled and snapped back, “No I don’t, Ranma. I don’t have to understand anything!” She took a deep breath and then spit out, “In a month and a half you’ll graduate, move out, and be gone for good. Then I’ll never have to listen to any more lies from you ever again.” She put on a burst of speed, pulling in front of Ranma as she reached the top of the stone steps leading out of the shrine. Angry tears rose in her eyes, but she refused to let them fall.

Before she could start her descent, Ranma grabbed her arm and jerked her back around to face him. The wind tousled his hair and blew it across his face, but he didn’t seem to notice or care. His cheeks were red and his eyes looked wild and slightly bruised.

“Akane, I did it because I love you!” Ranma fiercely declared. “I love you and I never want to let you go.”

Akane gasped. Two tears escaped her eyes, but were whisked away by the wind before they reached the edge of her chin. As she stared into Ranma’s desperately hopeful face, she felt something go supernova inside her head. Using her free hand, she reached up and slapped him across the face, “You jerk!”

Stunned, Ranma let go of her arm and stumbled gracelessly back.

“I love you too!” Akane screamed, stepping forward into his space. “I love you but it doesn’t matter now! I can’t trust you. You don’t get to choose if I stay or go! That’s up to me, not you, and I can’t trust you!”

Coming back to herself, she found his jacket fisted in her hands. She’d been shaking Ranma as she yelled in his face. Akane stopped, looked down, and relaxed her hands flat against his chest as she smoothed down the rumpled cloth.  

It took a lot of will to lift her head back up to look into his turbulent eyes. But she did it. Then she softly and painfully asked, “Why can’t I trust you?”

Ranma’s mouth worked open and closed in anguish. “You can,” he finally choked out, lifting his hands as if to clutch her to him, as if in this moment of crisis, he instinctively turned to his physicality to save him.

Firming her trembling lips, Akane shook her head sharply in negation. His hands dropped. Then she pushed Ranma back hard. He sprawled onto the ground and lay there, looking up at her with desperate frustration. Akane opened her mouth to resume her screaming, but nothing escaped but a sob. She clicked her mouth closed sharply before anything else could escape.

Turning, she flung herself down the steps and through the Torii gate, running away as fast as her legs would carry her. Ranma did not follow her. It should make her happy to finally escape his presence, but instead, it felt like just one more misery.


	32. Conversations and Consequences

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Good job to the readers who caught the biased narration in the last chapter, and how Akane’s understanding of the facts is based on some assumptions. This will be clarified in 1-2 chapters.

It had been 17 days since Ranma had admitted his love for Akane. Two and a half weeks since Akane had admitted to loving him back. 400 hours since she had slapped him, screamed, cried, and declared that their love wasn’t enough because she couldn’t trust him.

Ranma’s skin felt too tight. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d slept more than an few hours at a time. Maybe last month? It had taken him over a week to realize that the constant, low-level ache in his chest wasn’t even physical. Everything had gone wrong. Even food didn’t taste good anymore. Nothing was good anymore. Not even his martial arts could relieve him. His practices had become rote, devoid of any passion except for the occasional outburst of frustration, anger, and pain.

They said that the road to hell was paved with good intentions, and that pride goes before the fall. Well, Ranma had proof of both of those now. He was proof. He’d been so proud and arrogant and desperate when making Akane live and stay linked to him, so sure that he could force things to go the way he wanted them to. Well, he had his humble pie now. He was eating it, choking it down, bite by gag-inducing bite, bloated with the consequences of his conceit.

For Akane, Ranma had become something worse than useless. He was the cause of her current misery. He’d facilitated her future doom. She trusted in neither his protection nor his love.

He didn’t have the language to express how awful he felt.

The last time he’d seen her smile was that morning at breakfast, before it all went bad. She’d taken his hand for a minute under the table and squeezed his fingers. Under the cover of their father’s boisterous laughter she’d whispered, “You look awful this morning. Take a break and doing something fun, ok? Try not to think about it for a while.” Then she’d smiled sympathetically, glided her fingers off of his, and gotten up to put her dishes away in the kitchen.

Akane hadn’t smiled since. Miaka and that horrible aunt of hers were working Akane like a slave every other day up at that shrine, practicing Ki control and meditation. On the days she wasn’t there, she was practicing by herself in her room or in the dojo.

Ranma would’ve stopped going to school all together to concentrate on finding a cure for Akane, but most of the people he needed to talk to were busy during the day too. People were much easier to find in the evenings when they returned home for dinner and sleep. His parents would also start giving him grief if he skipped his last month of school ever. He didn’t have time for their interference, and Akane still didn’t want her family knowing. It rankled, but at least at school he got to see and check up on Akane regularly. At least, as much as she’d let him.

“Hey Akane,” Ranma said as he passed her in the hallway at school, hoping that maybe this time she’d respond differently. But in what had become the new normal, Akane gave him a vague nod and kept walking.

Unlike the other times Akane had been angry at him, she wasn’t giving him the cold shoulder. No, this treatment was a new kind of horrible. When Akane saw or spoke to him, she treated him worse than a stranger (after all, she tended to be pretty nice to strangers).Instead, Akane treated him like an unwanted casual acquaintance. She was polite and dismissive. She dodged eye contact. No touching was permitted.

It was agonizing.

However, when he’d just seen her in the hall, Ranma had noticed something different about Akane. Something unpleasant. Twisting to keep watching her retreating form, he couldn’t put his finger on what it was. They shared a history class later that day though, and Ranma spent most of the period staring at Akane from the corner of his eye until he finally figured it out. Peeking out of the collar of her blouse was the edge of a strange looking necklace.

When the bell rang, Ranma followed Akane out into the hall. Letting the crowd push him up close against her side, he hissed, “Hey, Akane, what’s that new necklace you’re wearing? It has a weird aura.”

Akane tried to edge away from him, but the hallway was too packed. He could feel the sigh move through her body as she glared at him from the corner of her eye. Then she regained control of herself and turned back into a distant stranger again, looking down the hall vaguely.

In a quiet but bored tone of voice Akane finally answered. “It’s a talisman that disrupts feline energy like the cat demon’s. Miaka’s aunt says it isn’t a cure, but that it should make it more unpleasant for him to tap into my spiritual energy.” Still not looking at him, she shrugged, as if the information had no bearing on Ranma, when _it totally did_. “Isn’t your class the other way?” she added dismissively before making a sharp turn into her classroom, leaving Ranma biting his tongue on a reply in the rapidly clearing hallway.

Turning on his heel, he raced down the hall and up the stairs to make his next class. Ranma managed to slide into his seat just as the bell rang, but his mind wasn’t on the teacher at all. Akane’s new necklace better work on that stupid demon, because it was would probably disrupt his own connection to her. His cat side was the main anchor for it, after all. He didn’t like it. Not one bit.

Ranma also got the feeling that Akane was using her new training to purposefully reduce what he could read through their spiritual tie. It couldn’t be just fatigue that made their tie seem weaker recently. He wanted to rage at her about it, but he realized that he had no right. That and it would do no good.

Ranma had spent every day since the shrine seeking out old allies and enemies who might know something to help Akane. So far, he’d come up blank. No one knew anything that would help. It turned out that most people stayed as far away from demons as they could get. Go figure.

The only people who knew anything about demon possession said that Akane should be completely possessed and corrupted by now, based on all of their experience. That she still had control of herself baffled them. Some of them promised to look into it further, but most of them saw it as an academic curiosity only.

Those people didn’t understand the visceral importance of curing Akane. They didn’t feel the urgency. Ranma had to save her. He had to.

Everyone on Ranma’s mental list had been contacted but Cologne and Dr. Tofu. Ranma had even cornered Happosai last weekend, but the old fool was so corrupt himself that he’d never bothered looking into demon possession. He was effectively immune, as that experience with the evil spirit who’d briefly possessed Kasumi proved.

Luckily, Dr. Tofu was due back any day now. As soon as he returned, Ranma planned to drag Akane over there for a spiritual examination. Surely Dr. Tofu would know how to fix this. He was a doctor, that’s what he did. Every day Ranma jogged by the clinic looking for a light to be on, but so far no luck.

Meanwhile, he’d been working on getting in to see Cologne. Ranma had actually tried to go to her first, but the old bat had been acting difficult. For over two weeks she’d been making him do a series of challenges, chores, and humiliating tasks to earn himself an hour of her time for a consultation. If she didn’t give in soon and talk to him, he was going to threaten to kick in the support beams on the Cat Café after calling the illegal immigration department. That or he’d invite Shampoo out for a walk along the canal during both the lunch and dinner rush hours every day, and act suspicious so Mousse made sure to follow along to spy, until Cologne gave in to the need to get her only wait staff back.

Later that day back at the house, Ranma found himself at loose ends. He hadn’t paid attention in class, so he couldn’t do his homework because he didn’t know what he was supposed to be doing. Bored, he wandered down to the living room and flipped himself up into a handstand against the wall in the far corner. Maybe the change in perspective would help him think of someone else to consult about demons.

Some time later, Ranma admitted defeat. He couldn’t think of anyone else that could, much less would, help. The blood pooling in his head hurt, but it was a good, honest hurt. It almost distracted him from the constant, painful burning of his ripped open heart. Maybe he should stay in this position.

After a while, he vaguely noticed Mr. Tendo wander by and stop in front of the small shrine across the room to light a candle. About a minute later, Akane came in and stopped next to her father. Ranma blinked his eyes rapidly to force himself to focus and pay attention, but otherwise stayed perfectly still so they wouldn’t notice him in the dimly lit corner.

“Daddy?” Akane said hesitantly. “Can I talk to you about something?”

Mr. Tendo sniffled and turned around, his eyes swimming with tears. “Oh Akane, your mother would have been so proud to see her last child graduate high school. If only she’d lived to see it. The anniversary of your mother’s death is next month you know.” He bent over and began sobbing into the hem of his gi.

“Of course I know, Daddy,” Akane said in a sad, soft tone of voice. “How could I forget?” She put her arm around his stooped shoulders and squeezed.

They stood there like that for a minute until Mr. Tendo’s sobs wound down and he managed to stop the flow of tears. “I give thanks every day that you girls are so healthy.” Reaching up, he patted the hand Akane had placed on his shoulder. “Was there something you needed to talk about, sweetheart?” His eyes stayed locked on the photo frame sitting next to his lit candle.

Akane sent her father’s bent head a pained grimace. “No Daddy, don’t worry about it.”

“If you’re sure,” he said vaguely as he lifted up a stick of incense and lit it from the candle. Shoulders drooping, Akane didn’t reply. She just turned and walked slowly away from her father.

Mr. Tendo didn’t linger at the alcove long. Ranma’s dad came into the room with a lot of fuss and bustling, rousing Mr. Tendo from his revere. After a quick and confusing conversation, the two of them hustled into their coats and left the house.

An indeterminable amount of time later, a pair of sleekly muscled calves walked up and stopped right in front of his face. Ranma admired their inverted shape. Spots drifted across his vision, obscuring trim ankles leading up to attractive calves. Ranma slowly tried to blink the spots away.

“Ranma, do you have a moment, or are you too busy trying not to pass out?” asked an impatient, familiar female voice.

_Akane!_ Ranma identified with a jerk that sent him tumbling gracelessly to the floor. Standing back up too quickly, Ranma swayed slightly as the blood rushed back down out of his head and to the rest of his body. “Um, yes to both,” he said, waiting for the black to recede from his vision.

She snorted. “Right, I can see that. Well, Dr. Tofu called Kasumi to say that he’s back in town. I’m going to swing over there to talk to him.” Akane hesitated for a moment before blurting out, “Did you want to come with me? You don’t have to.”

“Yes, of course!” Ranma replied stridently without any of the casual cool he’d intended. Oh well. Akane was talking to him like a friend again. That’s what mattered.

Although the invitation had raised his hopes, their walk to the clinic was still done in awkward silence. Akane did not respond more than monosyllabically to any of his conversational gambits. Finally, he relented and let the sound of the night crickets and passing cars fill the gap between them.

It didn’t take long to reach the clinic. Although the sign in front still said closed, a window in the back glowed with a cheery yellow light. The two teens quickened their steps to the front porch. Ranma was just a fraction of a second quicker in loudly knocking on the door.

After several seconds, a light came on in the entryway and the lock clicked. Opening the door, Dr. Tofu looked surprised to see them. “Oh, hello Akane, Ranma. Did you need something?” he asked with a tired, befuddled smile.

“Sorry to intrude like this when you’ve just gotten home,” Akane said bashfully. “We were hoping you could help us out with something, but if this is a bad time…” she trailed off.

Ranma huffed in annoyance and shouldered forward. “We can help you unpack and stuff while we talk, but this is pretty important.”

“Well, please, come on in then,” Dr. Tofu said with a glint of curiosity in his eyes as he stepped back and gestured them inside. “I just brewed a pot of tea.”

After trooping inside, they ended up in a back room with the tea and a plate of herbed rice balls. Dr. Tofu took down two more mugs and filled them with the still steaming tea. Sitting down, Ranma felt his knee immediately begin to bounce. He didn’t want tea. He wanted answers on how to fix Akane!

Akane had to be just as impatient, but she took a sip of tea for politeness sake before placing it back onto the table with a decisive click. “Dr. Tofu, I need your help. It looks like I may have been possessed by a demon while we were down in Okinawa last fall. It happened at the same time I got that cut in my side,” she said bluntly, apparently out of whatever patience had held her back so far. “We were hoping you might know how to get rid of it. A normal exorcism won’t work.”

Gesturing to Ranma, she let him explain what they knew about the demon and the possession so far. It wasn’t much. He had to force his voice to remain even when he explained his part in things. Akane occasionally interjected to clarify something.

As they spoke, Dr. Tofu’s face became progressively more disturbed. “I’m sorry to say that I’ve never heard of anything like that,” he said. “I can do a cursory scan without exposing myself to possible taint, like that poor woman you mentioned, but I don’t know if I can fix it. Let me see.” Dr. Tofu positioned his chair across from Akane before leaning forward and placing his fingers lightly at the base of Akane’s throat. Then he slowly and deliberately touched a few other pressure points on her body.

The room got very quiet.

Ranma gripped the fabric of his pants tightly to keep from getting up and pacing around the small room. He didn’t want to do anything that might distract Dr. Tofu from helping Akane. The seam of his pants started to slowly give under the strain. The sound of the stitches stretching and snapping seemed loud in the silent room. Wincing, he quickly let go as he glanced at Dr. Tofu’s face, but luckily the man didn’t seem bothered.

Dr. Tofu was just being humble. He had to be able to fix this. After all, he was a doctor. That’s what he did, fix people. Akane had been planning on going to him first with this problem, after all. She expected him to know how to untie their tangled Ki just as much as Ranma did. All that confidence couldn’t be misplaced.

After a couple more minutes, Dr. Tofu finally lowered his hands and leaned back in his chair with a sympathetic smile. “That is quite the Gordian knot you have going on in there.” Taking off his glasses, he pulled out a handkerchief and started polishing the lenses. Then he stopped and simply stared at his hands for a moment before sighing. It wasn’t a good sigh.

Putting his glasses back on, he placed his hands on his knees, looked Akane in the eye, and leaned forward. “I’m sorry, Akane. I don’t know how to fix this. I’m a chiropractor and practitioner of martial arts medicine, but this is based much farther into the realm of the spiritual than I normally venture. I can see the influences you mention, and that both Ranma and this demon have intruded into your physical well of energy, but that’s about as far as I got. The physical disturbances to your energy are located mainly at your throat and in the center of your body over your stomach and uterus. However I wouldn’t even know how to start removing them without causing you further harm, potentially irreparable and/or fatal.”

Looking down at her lap, Akane threaded her fingers together until the knuckles went white. “Oh,” she replied in a soft, devastated voice.

Ranma wanted to scream in frustration. The conversation wasn’t supposed to go this way. Dr. Tofu was supposed to save Akane.

“I’ll write a few people I know to see if they have any insights to add to the problem, and if I think of anything that could help I’ll let you know immediately,” Dr. Tofu said encouragingly. “But in the meantime it seems like you are doing all the right things, consulting with both a shrine and a temple on this issue. I’m sure the meditation and lessons on Ki control are helping too. Someone has to come up with an answer soon.” 

Looking back and forth between Akane and Ranma, he added, “If you think of anything else that I can help you with, please let me know. I’ll do everything I can. In the meantime, a comfy chair and a listening ear are always available to both of you here.”

As soon as he finished speaking, Akane sprang up from her chair. “Thank you, Dr. Tofu. That’s very kind.” Grabbing her coat from the back of her chair, she shrugged into the sleeves and began doing up the buttons with slightly unsteady fingers. “We’ll let you get back to your evening.” Sending Dr. Tofu a bow of thanks, she abruptly yanked Ranma out of his chair by the wrist and dragged him down the hall.

Barely managing to swipe up his coat with his fingertips, Ranma allowed Akane to manhandle him out the door and down the darkened sidewalk. When her pace finally slowed, Ranma took a quick look at her face to check for tears, but her cheeks were dry. However, her face looked devastated, almost hopeless. It was a foreign look that didn’t belong on Akane’s face.

Twisting his wrist to loosen Akane’s grip, Ranma slipped his arm through her grasp until he could grab her hand. Then he tugged lightly and squeezed. “Hey, Akane, don’t give up yet,” he entreated her. “We’ve still got lots of people to talk to. We’ll beat this. We will!”

Akane sent him a sideways, skeptical look, but at least she looked more animated. She also didn’t try to reclaim her hand. “I don’t know, Ranma. No one seems to know anything. I was hanging all of my hopes on Dr. Tofu. Maybe I am doomed,” she finished gloomily, the animation once again draining from her face.

“Now that is just stupid talk,” Ranma protested. “You are not doomed. We’ve conquered death, though sure that’s part of the problem now, but still, we did it. Death 0 – Akane and Ranma 1. If we can conquer death, some stupid little demon doesn’t have a chance!”

Stepping closer, Ranma gently bumped her shoulder with his, and then squeezed their clasped hands. “We’ve barely started looking. I still have some people to talk to, and all those religious people are searching their dusty libraries for answers too. Something is bound to come up. You just have to give it some time. We’ll beat this. We’ll win.”

They’d reached the front gate of the house. Akane turned and examined his face in the faintly reflected porch light. Sighing, she sent him a small, weary smile. “I hope so, Ranma. I really do.” Then she gently but inexorably pulled her fingers free from his clasping hand, turned away, and went up to the front door and into the house.

* * *

 

Several days later, Cologne finally deemed that Ranma had slaved away enough. After cackling at him for a few minutes based on his filthy and disgusting state, she announced that he could come over on Saturday morning for their talk.

Exactly two weeks to the day after everything exploded on Ranma at Miaka’s shrine, he walked up to the private entrance to the Cat Café. Ranma crossed his fingers that the coincidence meant that Cologne would have some answers. He was due some good news.

As Cologne had promised, neither Shampoo nor Mousse were around when he got there. Cologne let him in and then led him to her study. Sitting down on an embroidered cushion, she gestured with one age-spotted hand for him to seat himself across from her. “Well Son-in-law, what problem is so pressing that you need my help with it? If you’ve come to ask for Shampoo’s hand in marriage, you know that the answer is already yes,” she laughed for a moment to herself. Ranma didn’t see what was so funny.

Cologne tilted her head and continued, “I am also prepared to negotiate with you over this, if you are ready to be reasonable. After all, you are no longer the impetuous boy we first saw years ago in China. We can discuss my terms and any counter-offer you might have so that this stale-mate between us can end.” Looking out the window to the west, Cologne added quietly, “I grow weary of this land, and miss my home and my sisters.”

Drawing on all of his patience and diplomacy, which wasn’t as much as he wished, Ranma said, “I am sure the Tribe greatly misses you as well. However, I am not here to discuss our stale-mate over my marriage to Shampoo, as much as I respect her as a great warrior and ally. I thought I made that clear when I came requesting the benefit of your knowledge two weeks ago.” Ranma forced himself to stop and wait for her reply. He couldn’t allow his irritation and impatience to rule his tongue. Otherwise he risked offending her before he got his answers, no matter how much he wanted to call her an old bat as he railed at her for making him wait so long and do so many ridiculous tasks.

Inclining her head in acknowledgement, Cologne said, “I remember. But talk, like time, is fluid. That you wish to discuss one topic does not rule out discussion of another. But come, let us address your questions first. Then we can move on to other topics more relevant to my needs.” Waving her hand, she invited him to begin speaking.

“Thank you,” Ranma said as graciously as he could, biting back the rest of the sentence in his head about her being an old windbag who took forever to let him get to the point of this whole visit. _Cologne likes respect. Use that to get her to help you,_ he reminded himself again and again.

Placing his hands on his knees, he leaned forward and began. “Last November, Akane and I went down to Okinawa to learn Marital Arts Geometry over the holiday. While there, we got caught up in a kidnapping of the women at the temple down there. I got knocked into the cat fist, so I don’t remember much, but Akane ended up bleeding over this cursed necklace and getting infected by a demon. Her Ki is all messed up now, and a normal exorcism won’t work.”

Cologne’s eyes narrowed, but otherwise she gave no sign of dismay or surprise. “I have some experience with the demon-ridden and with maladies of the spirit. Why has an exorcism failed?”

Swallowing, Ranma explained about what the experts had figured out so far. As he spoke, Cologne’s face got darker and more disturbed. Standing up from her cushion, she began pacing back and forth across the room in thought.

When Ranma paused for a moment to swallow some spit to relieve his dry throat, Cologne interjected, “This story sounds straightforward at first, but something else has to be going on here for her spirit to be in the state it is in. For one thing, this doesn’t sound like a traditional demon possession. The demon can’t just want Akane for his host, or he would have taken her already. Something else has to be going on, some other purpose. Additionally, she shouldn’t have been able to leave the room once she’d been linked to the necklace, much less leaving the area of the demon’s influence to return home to Nerima. Only a competing spiritual tie would have allowed for that.”

Stopping her pacing, Cologne snatched up her walking stick and twirled it around a few times before hopping up on top of it and pointing a bony finger at Ranma. “There is something you are leaving out. What did you do? Spit it out, boy.”

Ranma grimaced and muttered, “I was getting to it, but you interrupted me first.” Considering the reaction of Miaka’s Aunt, he expected Cologne to be a bit unpleasant about it. That’s why he put it off until last. Taking a deep breath, Ranma began explaining about Akane’s death at Jusendo, and how it had led to him binding Akane’s soul to his own, twice.

He’d just started explaining the intricacies of what he’d done to bind Akane’s Ki using his cat fist persona as an ally when he noticed Cologne’s face go gray as she slid down off her staff to the floor. “Stop talking!” she barked out harshly. “Not one more word.”

Breathing heavily, Cologne looked down at the floor, leaned against her staff, and closed her eyes. Her age had never seemed more apparent as each wrinkle sagged into prominence on her bloodless face. It only lasted a few seconds, but it worried Ranma. Then her lips firmed as she seemed to come to some sort of decision.

Straightening up suddenly, Cologne shed the appearance of frailty. Although she still gripped her staff tightly and her face remained pale, strength began expanding out from her small form. Her aura began to glow around her in billowing waves and the tips of her white hair lashed back and forth from the current.

Turning her head to the side, she spit onto the floor. Then she glared venomously at Ranma. “What you may have done to Tendo Akane is an abomination,” she declared.

“But-,” Ranma began in hot defense, but Cologne cut him off.

“No! I will hear no more from you. What I’ve heard already goes against everything I believe in. To have a man imprison and violate a woman’s soul like you may have done is anathema. So far, I have heard only possibility, intention. Nothing has been confirmed, and you would do best not to speak one more filthy word about it in my presence, else the vows I have made to my tribe constrain me to kill you where you stand for what you may have done to that young woman,” Cologne threatened.

Ranma was shocked speechless from where he still knelt on the floor.

Cologne slashed her hand through the air as she continued, “Saotome Ranma, you are banished forevermore from the Cat Café. You are not now and henceforth never will be allowed as a member of my tribe. Your engagement to Shampoo is broken. Your status as our ally is null and void.”

A pained whimper sounded and Ranma glanced over numbly at the window to see Shampoo and Mousse staring in at them. They must have been eavesdropping below the window. “But Great-Grandmother,” Shampoo protested desperately as she placed a hand on the windowsill as if to leap inside.

“No! It is a matter of tribal law! You will obey or be cast out of the tribe with all of your dependents,” Cologne commanded viciously, flicking a look at Mousse during her threat. Mousse placed a restraining hand on Shampoo’s arm, but otherwise kept quiet. Shampoo paled and gripped the wooden window frame so hard it splintered in her grasp. However she made no more movements to come inside.

Cologne turned back to the silently panicking Ranma. Her face softened slightly. “Ranma, I am truly sorry you stumbled into such a bad choice. Tendo Akane has my pity. For that girl’s sake, if I think of anything helpful I’ll let her know, but our Tribe’s association with you must now end. It has been memorable.”

Striding over to the window, Cologne jerked her head to send Shampoo and Mousse running off. Then she shut and latched the windows with a bang. Going back over to her cushion, she sat down, pulled over a writing desk, and got out a scroll, ink pot, and brush.

“You can leave now,” she said dismissively as she uncorked her inkwell and began writing.

Ranma lifted his hands but then let them drop helplessly. “Cologne,” he begged desperately in a broken voice. She was his last option. He didn’t have anyone else to go to for help with Akane. But Cologne didn’t look up from her writing.

Finally he gave up on her reply. Standing up from the floor clumsily, he despondently shuffled to the door and opened it. _Where did he go from here?_

“Ranma,” Cologne said abruptly as he stepped out into the hall.

Turning hopefully, he looked up into her eyes for mercy. However, in their depths he saw only a sad old woman. His hope died.

“Good luck in redeeming your honor and… good bye,” she said softly before turning back to her letter.

Ranma waited a minute more to see if she would say anything else, but Cologne kept her gaze fastened on her writing desk. He couldn’t bring himself to say good bye or thank you. His throat felt too choked with guilt and anger.

Turning, he saw Shampoo standing at the end of the hallway with tears streaming down her face. She pressed her hand to her mouth and then stretched her palm out in his direction in a silent goodbye. From behind her, Mousse bowed respectfully. Shampoo’s hand dropped as a gut-wrenching sob escaped her throat. Twirling around, she dodged past Mousse and ran back towards her room. A second later Ranma heard a door slam. Mousse turned and followed her.

As he walked through the Cat Café for the last time, he could hear the sound of Shampoo’s heart-rending cries. Heat pricked at Ranma’s eyes as tears threatened to fall. He hadn’t expected that. _How could things just keep getting worse and worse?_ _And what was he supposed to do now?_

* * *

 

Two more weeks passed, and spring officially started in Japan, but Ranma still hadn’t answered those questions. School had dissolved into final projects and tests, so he was kept busy with that. Just as well, since all of his sources of information seem to have dried up. Things didn’t seem to be going well at the shrine for Akane either. At home, she had started going to bed earlier and earlier, and dark bags had formed beneath her eyes.

To celebrate the start of April and their final two weeks of high school, Kasumi had prepared a special meal. Ranma tried to be appreciative, but he just didn’t have the heart to fake true happiness. Akane also picked at her food and didn’t talk much. Kasumi tried to keep a cheerful conversation going, but only the two fathers were assisting her efforts.

“Things sure will be different once you two graduate,” Ranma’s dad announced through a mouth full of rice.

“It will be interesting, that’s for sure. But change is as constant as the seasons,” Kasumi said. “Speaking of change, I saw the oddest thing today when I was out at the market.”

Mr. Tendo frowned and asked fearfully, “Not more wanted photos of the Master I hope. I thought we’d done pretty well to keep him out of town most of this winter by sending him to harass,” he paused to cough in embarrassment, “I mean to train on the beaches down south.”

“No Father, don’t worry. I haven’t seen any new posters lately,” Kasumi soothed. “Actually, what I was talking about was the closing of the Cat Café. Apparently Cologne must have sold it, because it’s been repainted and has a new sign up for one of those chain restaurants.”

The food in Ranma’s mouth became tasteless, and hurt to swallow down. Cologne must have gone through with her threat and moved them all back to China. Even though he’d never wanted to marry Shampoo, he would miss them. Nerima wouldn’t be the same.

“Do you know what happened, Ranma?” Kasumi asked. Everyone turned to look at him.

Ranma shrugged his shoulders and looked away. “They’ve been talking about going back home to China for a while now. They must’ve just finally done it.”

Kasumi seemed to accept that, for her next statement turned the conversation to another topic. Ranma forced himself to clear his plate of food, even though his stomach was roiling unpleasantly. When dinner finally ended, he retreated to a corner of the living room and distracted himself by actually studying for his math test tomorrow. It reminded him that he hadn’t tried to talk to his cat side in weeks and weeks. He should probably give the guy a break. He had tried to warn Ranma he was being stupid, after all. Not his fault Ranma hadn’t listened.

When he finished studying, he went upstairs to put away his book and ran into Akane in the hallway. “Ranma,” she asked hesitantly, “did you get a chance to ask Cologne about that thing before they left town?”

“That thing?” he asked in confusion before catching on that she didn’t want anyone in the house overhearing them openly discuss her demon problem. “Oh, right, that thing.” He rolled his shoulders uncomfortably. “I asked, but she wasn’t able to help. She said she’d call you if she thought of anything useful, though. She’s not, ah… speaking to me anymore. Turns out she didn’t like what I’d done any more than you did.” A bitter smile twisted his lips as he waited for her reply.

Akane gave him a sharp glance, but didn’t respond to his verbal gauntlet. “Well, thanks for trying,” she said instead with a half-smile.

_A smile!_

“I know I’ve been useless,” Ranma snapped. “You don’t have to thank me for it,” he spit out, so angry and frustrated with everything that he just wanted to scream. But the last person who deserved his screaming was Akane, and screaming at himself had already proven futile.

Akane examined his face for a moment before sighing and rubbing her face briskly. “We’re both just tired,” she said.

Turning, she walked towards her bedroom. She twisted the doorknob open and took a step inside, but then paused with her hand on the light switch. Still facing the dark room, he heard her softly say, “Ranma?”

He tried to read the lines of tension in her shadowed back, but they told him nothing. “Yes?” he answered just as quietly.

In a soft, strange voice she said, “I do get that you were trying to help. I still haven’t quite forgiven you for lying about it and hiding things, but I understand why you did it. I do know you, Ranma.” She bowed her head, still keeping her face averted, and clutched the doorknob with an increasingly white-knuckled hand. Ranma desperately wished he could see her expression.

Then Akane whispered, “If I don’t beat this and the worst happens… please don’t destroy yourself over it.”

Ranma felt like he’d been hit in the chest by a charging rhinoceros. He couldn’t find the breath to explain the utter impossibility of her request. If Akane was gone, destruction wasn’t a fate to be avoided, it was an inevitability and a mercy.

Raising his hand to turn her back around to face him, his fingers met wood instead of flesh as she gently shut the door in his face. He pressed his palm flat against the door and rested his forehead on the little yellow duck spelling out her name in English. Breathing out harshly, he pushed back and jogged down the stairs and out the back door. As he crossed the yard to reach the dojo, he glared up at the moon shining brightly in the clear night sky and silently vowed that he would save Akane, no matter what it cost, up to and including his own soul.

 


	33. Voices, Napping, and Fish

That week at school, Ranma noticed something alarming happening: Akane actually fell asleep in class. Even worse, it didn’t happen just once. It was happening almost every day. In their three years of school together, Ranma had never seen Akane fall asleep in class. She might be blinking heavily the entire period, with her head starting to fall and then jerking back up, but she never actually gave in and placed her head on her desk to sleep.

Finally on Friday, Ranma couldn’t take it anymore. Leaning over while the teacher’s back was turned writing on the blackboard, he hissed, “Psst, Akane. What is up with you? I thought your training and new necklace were supposed to make you better. Instead, you look like crap.”

Turning her head in a move not at all subtle, Akane whispered back, “Shut up, you jerk. You’re going to get us sent out into the hall.” If the teacher had been looking, then it would’ve been Akane’s fault, not his, but the man was still oblivious. Akane then decided to ignore him by turning away, leaning forward, and putting her elbow up on the desk between them so he couldn’t see her face.

Ranma growled under his breath. They had one week of school left. What did it really matter in they got in trouble?

Nevertheless, he checked on the teacher for Akane’s sake. Sensei had pulled out a TV cart. He dimmed the lights and then turned on a movie. After telling them all to pay attention, the teacher sat down and pulled out a book of crossword puzzles.

Quickly Ranma reached over and yanked Akane’s arm flat onto the desk, revealing her face caught in the midst of a yawn. She slipped in her seat before turning to look at him in annoyance, but seemed too tired to really get angry. It wasn’t natural.

Frowning, he whispered, “You keep falling asleep in class. You never do that. What’s wrong with you?” Catching her eyes, he demanded, “What aren’t you telling me?”

Sighing, Akane gave up her resistance to his questioning. “I’m not keeping anything from you. The training and meditation is going well, it’s just…” she trailed off for a second and looked away. “I just seem to be getting worse, that’s all, and I’m not sleeping well either. Bad dreams. Can’t be helped, I guess.”

Resisting the urge to swear, Ranma said instead, “Then why don’t you just go home and nap? You can’t honestly tell me you’ve been paying attention and taking good notes with all of the yawning and nodding off you’re doing. Maybe a nap will help you feel better.”

Akane rolled her eyes at his words. “Honestly, Ranma, don’t be ridiculous. I’m not going to skip out of school because I’m a little tired. I’ll be fine. Lay off.” Then she turned back to the movie and began writing down notes on her paper, the faker.

Annoyed, Ranma tried to pay attention to the movie too, but didn’t have much luck. It was boring. He didn’t even bother unpacking his own notebook. Each time Akane yawned and took a few more seconds to open her eyes again, he got more worried, annoyed, and upset over her stubbornness.

When Akane’s head began drifting forward and finally came to rest on the surface of her desk, he’d had enough. Standing up abruptly, he pulled Akane’s notebook and pencil from beneath her arm and tossed them into her backpack before zipping it up and slinging it over his shoulder with his own. As she blinked up at him in befuddlement, he scooped her up from the desk into his arms, turned, and hopped out the window before the teacher could finish looking up from his crossword puzzles.

Jumping from tree to fence to rooftop, he headed back home. “Ranma, what do you think you’re doing?” she asked slowly, folding her arms and glaring up into his face.

“I thought that was obvious,” he replied without looking down from calculating his next leap. “I’m taking you home to get some sleep.”

“Ranma,” she whined, “there’s no point. I won’t be able to fall asleep at home anyways. This is stupid. Just take us back to school.”

Curling his arms more firmly around her legs and back as he hopped down to the pavement, Ranma sent her a frown. “You keep falling asleep in class, so I don’t see why you won’t be able to sleep even better in the comfort of your own bed vs in a hard wooden desk.”

Weakly hitting him on the shoulder, Akane pushed herself away from his chest as she replied, “I said no. I don’t want to. I’ll just meditate extra this weekend and I’ll be fine.”

“Well you don’t look fine,” said Ranma. “The bags under your eyes are a full luggage set. That stuff doesn’t seem to be helping. I can barely sense you anymore, but what I can sense doesn’t seem happy or healthy. Maybe a little sleep will help instead.” Then he readjusted his grip and tossed her up in the air briefly. When she instinctively clutched him close when he caught her, Ranma smirked. “And stop trying to push yourself off my chest. You know it won’t work, it just throws off my balance and makes me annoyed. I’ll toss you again if you keep squirming.”

Releasing a gusty sigh, Akane gave in and laid her head on his shoulder. “You are such a jerk sometimes.” Then she curled her arm up around his neck. After a minute of silence she added, “It’s just that I’m so tired all of the time now, that’s all. I’m not used to it. It’s messing with my head. I’ve been wondering if all this fuss is worth it.”

Ranma slowed down to concentrate better on her words. He didn’t like the sound of that at all. She sounded almost hopeless.

Tracing a fingertip around one of the buttons on his shirt, she continued in a terrifyingly calm tone of voice, “I’ve been thinking about going back down to Okinawa just to get it all over with, one way or another, while I still have the energy for it. I keep hearing this little voice telling me that in the grand scheme of things, I’m pretty unimportant, and my problems are inconveniencing so many people. It says I should just give in to the inevitable and return to the island. I was going to buy a ticket yesterday, but I was a few yen short at the ticket booth. Do you think you could lend me a little?”

Ranma stumbled to a stop in the middle of the sidewalk as his legs went weak over her words. “What?” he breathed out in shock and horror. “No, absolutely not!”

Leaning back to look into her face, he shook her as he growled, “Don’t even think about it! The only way you are going back there without me is over my dead body, got it? You are not unimportant. That’s monumentally stupid. You are vital to the happiness of your family. Plus the entire town would go into mourning if anything happened to you.” He ignored her skeptical snort.

Clutching her more tightly in his arms, he added roughly, “And did you forget my little declaration about loving you? Because I still do, you idiot. You are _not_ expendable. You are _not_ allowed to give up.” His heart raced in terror at what she had almost done. “You promise me you won’t go _anywhere_ without telling me first, Akane. You promise!”

“All right, Ranma, all right. Calm down, I won’t do it,” Akane sighed. “I don’t have the money for it anyways, remember?”

“But you promise me you won’t,” he demanded again, still not appeased by her light tone.

Akane looked up into his eyes. Whatever she saw there made her bite her lip and wrinkle her brow.  “I’m just so tired and I didn’t want to be a burden. It got too hard to ignore the voices. That’s all. I’m sorry I scared you,” she said softly. Then she blinked and a solitary tear trailed down her cheek. “I promise I won’t leave without telling you first, Ranma. I guess that was thoughtless of me. I’m sorry.”

Pulling her head back down to his shoulder, Ranma began moving again jerkily. “Well that’s why we’re going to go home and take a nap,” he said unevenly. “We’re both tired and not sleeping well, but with a bit of rest we’ll both start thinking better. We can defeat anything if we’re together, Akane. We’ve proven that. Don’t give up on us now.”

Akane’s reply wasn’t verbal, but she sighed and snuggled closer into his embrace. A few blocks later her breathing evened out and her body went limp. She’d fallen asleep.

When they reached the house, Ranma didn’t bother waking Akane up. He just slipped off both of their shoes by the door. No one was home that early in the afternoon to bother them, so he took them up to her room and dropped their bags. Then he pulled down the blanket on her bed with his foot and laid her down. After tucking the blanket back up over her chest, he smoothed back a lock of hair behind her ear.

He had to bow his head for a second and close his eyes as the terror of her disappearing back to Okinawa alone assaulted him again. His breathing sped up. Swallowing hard, he rubbed roughly at his face. He couldn’t think about what might have happened or he’d drive himself nuts.

As he turned to go, a hand on his wrist stopped him. Surprised, he turned back to Akane. Her eyes were open and concerned as she looked up at him.

“Come lay down with me,” she said.

“Wait, what?” he said in surprise, not trusting his ears.

“Come lay down with me,” she said again, tugging on his wrist.

Ranma felt his face turn red. “B-but,” he protested weakly as she lifted up one side of the blanket and easily pulled his weak-willed body down onto the bed. “Akane,” he said helplessly as he fell onto his side. This was probably a bad idea, but he couldn’t muster the energy to actually resist, not when there was nowhere he’d rather be.

Adjusting her grip so she now clasped his hand next to her head on the pillow, Akane flipped the covers up over his unresisting body. Then she closed her eyes firmly and ordered, “Nap now.”

Staring at her stubborn face, Ranma told his scattered wits to shove it. He hadn’t been sleeping well either, after all. He could have this. Lying on his side, he stared at the precious curve of her eyelashes and the almost invisible freckles on her nose and cheeks.  The bed quickly warmed with the two of them under the covers, even though only their hands touched. His body sank into the comfort of the mattress as he basked in the smell of Akane and the feel of her warm hand tucked trustingly into his. This was peace. Soon he began to blink slowly, his eyes drifted shut, and between one breath and the next he slipped into the most perfect, dreamless sleep he’d had in months.

* * *

 

Ranma woke up with a smile on his face. He could hear birds singing and could feel warm sunlight on his face. Stretching his arms and legs as wide as possible, he groaned and then subsided onto his back with a happy sigh. As he scratched his belly, he opened his eyes to a strange ceiling. That’s when he finally realized that he wasn’t in his own bed or even his own room.

A giggle sounded from his left. Turning over, Ranma saw Akane sitting at her desk laughing at him. “You have the most ridiculous face when you first wake up,” she said.

A blush raced across his cheeks when he realized that he was still in Akane’s bed. Looking away bashfully, he sat up and swung himself out of his warm cocoon. “What time is it?” he asked. As he stood up, he noticed that Akane wasn’t wearing her school uniform anymore.

“It’s almost 7 am,” Akane said.

Ranma did a double take. “Wait, what? But we got home in the afternoon.”

Smirking, Akane rolled her eyes as she replied, “We did. But you kept sleeping through dinner and wouldn’t wake up. When I poked you, you just grumbled and rolled over, so I let you stay put. You obviously needed the sleep. I told everyone you were out training overnight.”

“Oh, sorry,” he said as he scratched the back of his head sheepishly. He did feel amazingly refreshed. “But then where did you sleep last night?” he asked.

“In my bed too, of course. It is mine,” she replied airily. Then she added with an arch look, “But don’t assume you can just drop in whenever you like. Yesterday was a special circumstance.”

Ranma went scarlet, “Of course I wouldn’t just-, not that I-, I mean that I would but-, well anyways. Thanks.”

Akane laughed again and opened the window. She seemed very cheerful this morning. “Goodbye Ranma,” she said. “I’ll see you at breakfast.”

Flustered, he hopped up onto the windowsill and retreated to the dojo. That was nice. Really nice. And Akane had looked so cute as she’d smiled at him this morning.

However, the extra sleep had cleared his head. It was a bit sobering to realize just how muzzy his thinking and reactions had gotten. Ranma realized that he urgently needed to have a talk with his cat side.

Ranma’s pride and anger had kept him from contacting him earlier, and that had been stupid. He’d been in the cat fist for most of his time on Iriomote Island. Those memories could help out Akane. Plus, his cat side had been trying to battle the demon’s influence over Akane all along, he’d as much as told Ranma that months ago when they’d discussed Ranma’s feelings of being spied on when using the Ki tie.

Calming himself down, Ranma did a few warm-ups. He ignored the gurgling of his empty stomach to concentrate on the stretch of his muscles. Finally ready, he did the kata that gave him access to his inner psyche.

As he mentally crawled through the tunnel, he noticed that it seemed narrower and less smooth. When he reached the clearing, however, he was shocked by what he saw. The space had completely changed. All of the grass had disappeared, leaving only a rough black room with a dim circle of light in the ceiling and a skeletal tree. A few sickly leaves remained on a couple of branches, but those were the only spots of color in the entire room.

Ranma searched, but his cat side wasn’t there. He tried calling out for him, but nothing replied. Not even an echo. Searching proved fruitless.

Worried, Ranma woke himself up. He had to think about what this meant. Starting into a new series of exercises, he began speculating on what might be wrong.

It could be revenge for Ranma’s own avoidance. Perhaps his cat side was miffed and avoiding Ranma in retaliation. There was also a chance it was just too busy trying to shore up Akane’s spirit that it didn’t have time to come and talk to him. Or it could be hurt or injured. Maybe something was wrong.

He had to find out for sure. But how? Acid gurgled in his stomach as he thought of one guaranteed method to bring out his cat fist side: come face to face with a cat.

If he was going to do that though, he needed at least the comfort of a full belly first. Finishing up his practice, he wandered back up to the house. Luckily, no one seemed suspicious about his absence the night before.

For the first time in weeks, Ranma felt starved. After loading up his plate he began shoveling it all into his mouth. After a minute, he looked up to find everyone staring at him in surprise. “What?” he asked in between bites.

Kasumi smiled tearily, “It’s just good to see that your appetite has returned.” Ranma shrugged uncomfortably, but before he was forced to reply, conversation and normal eating resumed at the table.

“Oh, Akane,” Kasumi said, “don’t forget that we’re helping out Dr. Tofu this morning.”

“I know, big sister. I’m all ready to go when you are,” Akane said.

Ranma had been trying to decide if he wanted to get Akane’s help or not for the conversation with his cat side, but the decision was just taken out of his hands. She was busy this morning. But surely he could do this just fine by himself, right?

After helping Kasumi clear the table, Ranma lingered in the kitchen for a moment. Kasumi looked over at him from the sink and finally asked, “Did you need something, Ranma?”

“I was just wondering which of our neighbors has the- the um… the kitten,” he forced out.

Kasumi looked suspicious for a moment, but then her usual calm peace smoothed out the lines on her forehead. “The house three doors down on the left owns the cat, but I’ve already spoken to them about keeping it away from our property, Ranma. You don’t need to worry.”

“Oh, thanks, Kasumi.” Fidgeting for a moment, he added, “I can finish the dishes for you if you want to leave.”

Surprised pleasure suffused her face. “Thank you, Ranma. I’d appreciate that. I haven’t had a chance to really see Dr. Tofu in a while, so I’ve been looking forward to going over.”

Ranma smiled back at her happiness. It was easy to forget sometimes that Kasumi was still a young woman herself. “Go and have fun,” he said. “I can easily clean up. Shoo,” he said as he grabbed her drying towel and flapped it in her direction.

Laughing at his antics, she took off her apron and hung it up. Then she went and called Akane from the base of the stairs. Akane quickly replied, and within a couple of minutes they had bustled out the door.

After washing and drying the dishes, Ranma went to the fridge. He found a small plate with fish left over from last night’s dinner. It was perfect. He poured the fish onto a piece of butcher’s paper and twisted the ends shut.

Taking a deep breath, he tucked the package of fish underneath his arm. It took just a second to slip on his shoes and open the door. Then he jogged over to the house three doors down on the left.

No one seemed home, so Ranma hopped the fence into the back yard. Despite his brave charge into danger, he couldn’t find the cat back there. Time to change his plan.

One of the windowsills was cracked open a couple of inches to let in some air. Ranma pulled out his package of fish and carefully placed one strip next to the opening. The rest of the fish he placed at his feet as an obvious offering to his cat side. Then he called, “Here, kitty kitty kitty.” His voice sounded more scared than enticing, but the smell of fish seemed to do the trick.

Ranma wanted to run away when he heard a faint meow from inside the house, but he forced his knees to stay locked in position. It only took a few more seconds for the kitten to hop up onto the windowsill and reach through the opening with her sharp claws for the piece of fish. Ranma tried not to hyperventilate. Ivory fangs flashed as the torn flesh disappeared into the depths of the kitten’s scarlet maw. Then the little terror began licking her paws and cheeks and giving him the side-eye. Ranma couldn’t take much more of this.

Finally, _finally_ , Ranma felt his consciousness shift as he got sucked down into the cat fist. Relieved, he watched as his cat side devoured the rest of the fish. Then he began bouncing through the neighborhood and up and down several trees. Some he used as scratching posts, and others he rubbed his back and sides against to either scent mark or soothe an itch. Ranma wasn’t sure.

After playing around for an indeterminable amount of time, his cat side wandered into the backyard of the Tendo’s and over to the pond. Twisting his head over his shoulder, he stared at the dojo for almost a minute. Then he met the eyes of his reflection in the water and flicked his gaze over at the dojo again. Giving a cat smile, he suddenly leapt into the pond with a _splash!_

Ranko surfaced with a sputter. As she waded out of the pond, she wrung out the water from her hair and clothes as best she could. _Ugh_ , Ranko grimaced as she dragged a slimy leaf out from her cleavage. Her female curves had pulled her collar down and the hem of her shirt up just enough to let in a gush of dirty water and debris. _Boobs and hips were such a pain._ She ducked into the kitchen for a minute to grab the teakettle and change back. Then she wiped her front down with a towel.

After that, she took the hint and went over to the dojo. It was the work of but a moment to turn spiritually inward and journey back down that dark tunnel towards the clearing. The tree looked a little healthier this time with several branches sprouting green leaves, but otherwise the room still looked black and dreary.

“Took you long enough,” said a gravelly voice as a blank panther with several patches of mangy fur slunk out from behind the trunk of the tree. Jumping, Ranma stumbled back. However, he wasn’t scared, just surprised.

Ranma blew out a deep breath. He was desperate, and Akane’s life and sanity were at stake. He could humble himself for that. For Akane, he could do anything.

Making sure to meet his cat side’s eyes, he then slowly and deeply bowed. “I’m sorry I ignored your warning and avoided you. Please forgive me and help me save Akane. Please.” He waited in this humble and vulnerable position for a reply.

A chuckle escaped the panther’s mouth. “Good form, Ranma. Bringing me the fish was also a nice touch. Very well, I accept your apology. Just don’t do it again.”

Ranma stood back up with relief. “So what about Akane?” he asked.

“I’ve been doing all I can to help her out and fight back the demon, but things have been rough.” His black tail lashed back and forth in agitation. “I didn’t fully understand what was going on before. On top of that, the necklace they have Akane wearing is one of the most unpleasant things I’ve ever experienced. It smells disgusting and puts out this shrieking sort of vibration that rattles my bones and makes me want to go hide under a bed with my paws over my ears. I might be able to begrudgingly accept it if it was actually weakening the demon, but it’s not! It’s only hurting me, so the demon has actually gotten stronger where I’ve been forced to retreat. The new Ki techniques Akane’s learning are helping to slow him down a little, but not enough. That darn rat’s been slinking all over her. I’ve been trying to tell you for weeks, but you aren’t sleeping long enough for me to send you a dream about it and you’ve resisted my other attempts to contact you.” He sent Ranma a glare. “Here, I’ll just show you now.”

Then he reared up on his hind legs, planted his front feet on Ranma’s chest, and smashed him flat onto his back. “That hurt,” Ranma wheezed from beneath several hundred pounds of back feline, “and you smell horrible.”

“Whine whine whine,” the cat said as he slid down to Ranma’s side. “Now pay attention.”

The dim circle of light on the ceiling rippled. Then it began getting brighter, and larger, like an iris opening until Ranma had to close his eyes against the overwhelming white glare. He sensed a flash behind his closed eyelids, and when he opened them again, he was in the cave on the island again with Akane.

They were surrounded by native Iriomote cats, and one of them seemed to be speaking to Ranma. Unlike his other cat fist dreams, he was not only an observer. This time, he felt the thoughts and feelings of his cat side too. He also could understand the meowing of the other cats.

_An old, grizzled Iriomote cat spoke, “How can a cat protect the demon-enemy? Don’t you know that she needs to die?”_

_Ranko narrowed her eyes and glanced quickly back at her person, but didn’t see anything strange.  Turning back, she settled down and angrily responded. “Old geezer, I protect my person, not any demon-enemy.  She is my future-mate!  Touch her, and I’ll kill you and sh** on your corpse.”_

_“Insolent kitten!” the older cat spat.  “She has been possessed by the ancient enemy.  We sense the demon in her. We know. Better to kill her now than have her birth a new litter of foes.”_

_Ranko hissed angrily. “She is not possessed.  I would know!” Standing up, Ranko paced forward angrily. “Stupid old cat, she will only birth my kittens, not any demon’s!”_

_While Ranko first growled her response, the older cat’s ears twitched angrily.  However, by the time Ranko finished, he looked a bit confused.  “You are both female, she cannot have your kittens.”_

_Ranko snorted and stuck her nose in the air.  “I am female now, will be male later.  Then we will mate.  Our kittens will be strong: too strong for you, too strong for demon. You are confused.”_

_“And you are a crazy-idiot cat, but facts don’t change. Her energy tastes of_ rat _demon!” snarled the elder. “We have fought the ancient enemies for many seasons.  Long ago magic trapped the last rat demon in a cave on our island.  We guarded it.  But now we are few and the demon has escaped.” He lowered his muzzle to the ground and glared at Ranma. “She is evil now.  We can taste it.”_

_“And I say you still lie,” Ranko responded flatly. “But,” Ranko paused and sighed irritably, “what does rat demon taste like? I will check, and prove you wrong. Then you will go away… or I will kill you.”_

_Huffing at Ranko’s insolence, the elder cat stalked forward.  “I will touch your ki and show you the taste. Pay attention.” With that warning, the cat touched his forehead to Ranko’s._

_The knowledge stretched from one cat to the other like soft taffy, until finally it twisted into Ranko’s own aura. Then Ranko broke contact.  Even with their temporary truce, Ranko still did not trust the old geezer.  Ranko knew how easily old ones could lie.  Therefore she refused to turn her back as she warily returned to her person’s side._

_While they had talked, his person had sat down in front of the cave and eaten an orange fruit. Ranko could smell it on her. Giving the waiting cats one last contemptuous glance, Ranko rubbed against her person’s shoulder.  Then she licked the sluggishly bleeding claw marks on her person’s leg._

_At this, her person started making loud unhappy noises. However, Ranko didn’t pay attention. Beneath the delicate sweetness of the blood coating her tongue lurked a strangely sour flavor, something like… rat demon.  This was bad.  Very bad._

_Ignoring the hands pushing her away, Ranma licked her person’s leg again, rasping her tongue hard against the wound several times to get a better taste. The hurt sounds her person made caused Ranko to flinch, but she didn’t stop until she was satisfied. Crawling on top of her person to stop the squirming, Ranko trapped her person’s arms with her hind legs. Then she put her paws on her person’s shoulders and forced her to lie flat._

_Crouching nose to nose, Ranko stared down into her person’s large brown eyes anxiously. The blood still tasted wrong, but it was very faint. Her person couldn’t be possessed.  Ranko would not allow it. If she was… then Ranko would somehow fix it._

_A questioning meow escaped Ranko’s bloody lips as she searched those brown eyes for demon taint. Did Akane house a demon? Ranko’s ki seeped from her body to envelope the girl below._

_Suddenly, something swam up from the depths of those deep brown eyes.  Ranko recognized it.  “No,” answered her cat fist avatar using her person’s mouth, “it marked her, but she escaped.  She’s not possessed.”_

_Elated, Ranko bounded off her person and spun to face the other cats.  “You heard.  She’s not!” Ranko yowled._

_“So she says, but she is still demon marked,” grumped the elder cat._

_“Then I will kill the demon and she will be free,” responded Ranko arrogantly._

_“It is a dangerous hunt, but…” the older cat paused and gave Ranko an assessing look, “if you pledge to kill the demon-enemy for us, we will let her live.”_

_Scratching her ear nonchalantly, Ranko replied, “I will pledge to kill the demon-enemy for her, and if you leave now, I will let you live.”_

_The elder cat snorted, but agreed, and the horde of cats disappeared into the trees._

The vision dissolved, and Ranma came back to himself in the black clearing with the tree. He felt like he’d been knocked over the head with a brick house. So much more felt clear now about both Akane and himself. Plus… “It’s a _rat_ demon. Not cat, rat. They have it all wrong.”

“Yes!” howled his cat side. “I’ve been trying to tell you that!” He pushed his muzzle into Ranma’s face as he growled his demands. “You must tell them! Make Akane take off that horrible necklace! I can barely help her with it on, and the rat demon has been increasing his presence in our space. Akane is ours, not his. OURS!”

Ranma pushed the cat away from his face roughly and sat up. “Of course she’s ours.” Dusting himself off, he said, “I’ll go fix this. In the meantime,” he paused and took the panther’s head between his hands to stare directly into his eyes, “I promise not to shut you out anymore. We are one now. I accept it. But you need to take better care of yourself. Both Akane and I are depending on you.”

The panther let out a purr. “It will be better once the necklace is gone and you are eating and sleeping normally again. You need to take care of yourself too. But I won’t let you or Akane down. You can count on me.”

“I know I can,” Ranma said. Sighing, he let his forehead come to a rest on the top of that furry head for a moment. Then he let go, stood up, and left the clearing.

* * *

 

When Ranma came back to himself in the dojo, the sun hung high in the sky. Walking back into the house, he heard Kasumi bustling around in the kitchen. Akane must be back too then.

Taking the stairs three at a time, Ranma ran to her room and pushed open the door. “Akane?” he said as he swept the room with his eyes urgently. “Are you in here?”

“What?” she answered, leaning back out of her closet where the door had hidden her from view. “What’s wrong Ranma?”

“You have to take that off right now,” he said urgently, striding forward and ripping the necklace over her head. It writhed unpleasantly in his hand and made his palm sting and itch. Grimacing, Ranma swiped a purse off the floor and dropped it inside.

“Ranma!” she shrieked in dismay. “What are you doing? I need that!” She reached for the purse, but he held it up out of her range. “Give it back!”

Dodging her wild grabs and the jabs aimed at his ribs, Ranma said, “No, you don’t understand. It’s not helping you, it’s hurting us.”

Akane slowed to a stop as his words penetrated. “What are you talking about? And how could it hurt _us_? That doesn’t even make sense.”

“I just got back another memory from the cat fist,” Ranma explained, keeping a wary eye on her hands and feet. “I remembered the cave from Iriomote Island and fighting the cats there. Do you remember seeing me communicating with them?”

Dropping down onto her bed, Akane’s eyes went unfocused. “I remember being surrounded and terrified. They formed up into this great writhing mass of cats until a giant glowing spirit cat formed above their heads. The two of you fought. But then… yeah, you did start meowing at each other for a while. Then you got all weird.” She clutched a pillow to her chest and asked, “Why? What did it all mean?”

“We were arguing over you, mostly, but he told me that the Iriomote cats had been keeping a rat demon imprisoned until they got too weak and he broke out. It was that RAT demon that infected you Akane. Not a cat demon,” Ranma explained.

Akane’s eyebrows shot up in surprise. “But what about that fighter that looked like a cat?”

Ranma shrugged, “He must be some sort of experimental soldier or something, but that doesn’t matter right now. I’m telling you this for certain, Akane. Your demon is rat, not cat.”

“So what? Why did you rip off my necklace? How is it hurting us?” Akane demanded in an upset tone of voice.

“Since the neckalce affects feline energy, it isn’t doing diddly squat to the rat demon,” Ranma spat. “But it is affecting the cat fist energy in our spiritual tie. The necklace is hurting my cat side and keeping him from fighting back the demon.”

He strode forward and crouched down in front of her, taking her hands in his own. “I bet that’s why you’ve gotten so tired and hopeless, Akane. You know that isn’t like you. You aren’t a quitter. It’s the demon’s influence. It has to be.”

Ranma looked over at the purse on the floor, and then back at Akane. He clutched her hands tightly as he begged, “Give the necklace back, Akane. Please. Let us help you fight this guy off.”

Then he let her fingers slip from his grasp as he stood up and took a step back. “But if you don’t want that, if you don’t want my cat side that far inside of you, then” he swallowed hard, “you can put the necklace back on. It won’t do anything to the demon. It also won’t get rid of us, nothing can do that now. However, it will make it harder for us to reach out to you. The choice is yours.” Ranma waited with baited breath for her answer.

Akane’s eyes drifted back and forth between the purse and Ranma. Standing up, she replaced her pillow at the head of her bed, smoothing out the wrinkles until it lay completely flat. She paused. Stared at the fabric.

Then she turned and scooped up the purse form the floor. Ranma felt his heart plummet. “Well come on, then,” she said as she strode to the door.

“What?” Ranma asked, confused.

Akane paused in the doorway and looked back. “If we’re going to return the necklace, we might as well do it now while the shrine is still open.”

Ranma felt his heart bounce off his toes and rebound back into his chest with a click. “Oh, ok,” he answered meekly. Smile growing on his face at her implicit acceptance of their Ki bond, he followed her down the stairs and out the door.

A niggling little voice said he still had to be missing something about his demon foe, but the feeling wouldn’t come clear. Quickening his pace so he walked next to Akane instead of behind her, he pushed it to the back of his mind for now. Maybe his new information would help Miaka’s Aunt to shake something new loose that would clarify his thoughts.

Meanwhile, he’d focus on sending a trickle of energy Akane’s way to shore her up. After all, she had agreed to leave off the necklace. That gave him permission to help any way he could. It might be a case of ‘give him an inch and he’d take a mile,’ but that was his personality after all. Akane already knew that.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In the comments for the last chapter, several people wondered why Cologne didn’t stop in to see Akane before she left town. The reason is that Cologne has made certain vows as a Matriarch of her Amazon Tribe, and part of that is not permitting certain “anathema” things to happen without retaliation. What he did basically cut Akane off from a natural spiritual progression, after all, and bound her to Ranma’s fate irrespective of her own deeds. When Ranma started explaining what he’d done to Akane’s soul, Cologne recognized what he was explaining as falling into the category of things she’d vowed to not permit. That’s why she cut him off before he finished explaining. If she let Ranma finish admitting to violating Akane’s inner soul and binding her to him without her knowledge, or if she’d visited Akane and confirmed for herself what had happened, she would be honor bound to kill Ranma for what he had done, and probably to kill Akane as well to put her out of the misery of having a perforated soul if she survived Ranma’s death. Cologne knows both of them too well to want to have to kill them, though she’d do it if she had to. This way, she can split hairs and claim she doesn’t know for sure what Ranma did, just that he wanted to do something that was considered anathema. Since she informed him of the awful nature of his intentions, she can honorably exile him from the tribe without killing him. If she learns anything new about it, she can also in the future send him “advice” on the subject in the form of reasons why doing such a thing is a bad idea and what she knows about combating it should he ever again think about doing such a thing. Supposedly.


	34. Boys in the Park and a Dawn Parting

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: This chapter contains graphic descriptions of animal experimentation (the harvesting of neurons for epilepsy research) that may disturb some readers.

A couple of evenings later, Ranma found himself walking downtown. Since Kasumi was out on an actual date with Dr. Tofu, everyone was forced to fend for dinner themselves tonight. He’d hoped to invite Akane out to dinner to keep repairing their relationship, but Akane was staying for dinner at Miaka’s shrine. Miaka and her Aunt were moving out of town next week, so Akane was trying to cram in as much training as possible while she could. That just left his Pops and Mr. Tendo. He wasn’t really interested in fighting them for leftovers, so he’d decided to go out to eat on his own.

However, as he wandered the busy streets filled with businessmen getting off of work and students celebrating school almost being over, he felt a bit lonely. He didn’t feel comfortable just yet bothering Ukyo after the big blow-up with their engagement and P-chan, the Chinese contingent were gone, and Ryoga was almost impossible to find. Even Hiroshi and Daisuke were unavailable - both grounded for pulling some prank over the weekend.

Ranma wondered how Akane was doing with Miaka’s harridan aunt. The old biddy still didn’t trust Ranma, and had refused to give up her research on cat demons. It had taken a lot of fast talk, but at least she had finally, grumpily, agreed to start researching rat demons too. She had not been pleased that Akane had refused to wear the necklace anymore. But even she couldn’t argue that after just a few days without it, Akane was already looking better. Unfortunately, most of the books on rat demons had ‘conveniently’ gotten burned in the fire set by that female monk. None of the aunt’s colleagues were having any luck on finding information on rat demons either. Ranma suspected that monk Sachi may have gotten to their collections too. He didn’t like hitting girls, but he might make an exception for her, especially if something worse happened to Akane because of it.

Maybe he should try swinging by the local library to see if they had anything useful? Or would Akane have already done that? After all, she was more of a researcher than he was. Still, it would be something to do after dinner.

Stuffing his hands into his pockets, Ranma dodged a clump of office ladies taking up the sidewalk and tried to make up his mind where to go eat. Nothing really looked good. A few seconds later, he heard a voice calling, “Ranma! Hey, Ranma, over here!”

Glancing over, he saw Jun from the D&D club waving his arm in front of the 100 yen a plate sushi joint across the street. Ranma acknowledged him with a wave and then waited for a break in traffic before dodging across. He’d learned that drivers got twitchy and more prone to hit things when he leapt onto the roof of their moving car.

 “Hey Jun, what’s up?” Ranma asked when he got there.

“Me and the guys are celebrating our impending freedom from high school. Why don’t you join us?” Jun asked with a smile.

Ranma was tempted, but, “I wouldn’t wanna crash your party,” he began before Jun interrupted him.

“Dude, we’ve totally noticed that you’re in the dog house with Akane lately. Even your hair has gotten this droopy, hangdog look. It’s pitiful,” he said.

“Hey!” Ranma protested, placing his hand protectively over his braid.

Jun ignored him and grabbed his arm. “You need some cheering up, my friend, so come hang out with us. Forget about your troubles for a while and stuff your face with cheap but tasty food in the company of some great guys as we celebrate shaking the scent of pineapple from our clothes forever! Come on!”

Laughing at Jun’s enthusiasm, Ranma gave in and allowed himself to be dragged into the restaurant. He wouldn’t be getting to the library tonight, but Akane had probably scoured the shelves already, and he could ask her later just in case. Besides, he hated moping, and he was getting dangerously close.

One of the tables in the corner was crowded with the entire D&D club. Only Gosunkugi was missing. Jun explained as they dodged through the crowded restaurant that Gosunkugi was on a short parental leash ever since he’d disappeared for the weekend without an explanation. Ranma wouldn’t miss him, but he kept that to himself.

The D&D club greeted their arrival with a loud cheer and some unexpectedly hearty backslapping, considering the weedy arms of most of the guys. Despite his initial hesitation, Ranma found himself having a lot of fun over dinner. The food was cheap but tasty. Also, the other boys accepted him into their ranks without any hesitation. As Yuuji put it, once you’ve battled a demon squirrel and saved a hot chick together, you’re friends for life. Conversation was light and cheerful as well, with none of the gloom and guilt that had consumed most of his recent interactions.

After they finished eating, the boys rolled out of the restaurant like a handful of thrown marbles. A few veered off to head home or check out the karaoke next door, but the core group was too hyped up to settle down, so they bounced around for a while before finally settling down at the local park. With the setting sun gilding the slides and swings, they crawled around the playground and talked about their future plans. Yuuji had gotten a job apprenticing with a local mechanic, which had pleased his mother immensely and softened the blow of his low test scores.  

Ren, on the other hand, had scored quite well all year and was going off to college to study history. Before he left, however, he had to go and help his grandparents out this summer on their farm. “Mom thinks it might make me beef up so I can get a girlfriend, but she shipped me over there last summer too, and all I did was burn and blister and sneeze,” Ren moaned.

“That stinks, man,” Jun commiserated. “I was supposed to go and visit my maternal grandfather this summer too, but luckily my mom got me out of it. She hates her hometown and doesn’t want it to rub off on me or something. She’s from this little podunk mountain village way up north that is completely old fashioned. They don’t even have electricity. The only interesting thing my mother ever said about it was that they have some crazy Ki techniques to manipulate their bodies to fit the harsh environment up in the mountains.”

Ranma sat forward, intrigued. “What kind of Ki manipulation?” he asked.

Jun twisted his mouth in thought. “My mom says my grandfather can supposedly manipulate his life force to create ki bonds with people to share energy during lean winters or something. He can also destroy ki bonds between people. There was something about manipulating fertility too, but I didn’t really understand it. She doesn’t talk about it much except at New Year’s when she drinks too much, and I’m not sure how much of her weird ramblings to believe. Sorry, man,” he apologized to Ranma.

“Well I don’t blame you for not wanting to go,” Tetsu said. “It sounds bo-ring!”

“Yeah, I’m just lucky my mom loves the comfort of the city too much,” Jun continued. “We scraped out of having to go this year by promising to go ocean fishing with him for a week at the end of the summer instead. Mom’s planning on booking us at a resort with a dock and then springing it on him last minute so he doesn’t have time to back out,” Jun told them slyly.

Ren laughed. “Your mom rocks, man.”

“Do you think he’d mind if I came and visited the village?” Ranma asked Jun.

Jun stared at him like he was crazy. “Why would you want to?”

Ranma gripped the bars next to him tightly to contain his excitement. “I have a friend who’s having problems with a spiritual tie. I need to learn some more Ki manipulation techniques to fix it, and it sounds like your Grandfather might be able to help me.”

Shrugging, Jun replied, “Well, it’s your time to waste, but don’t tell me I didn’t warn you about the place. He’ll love having someone to listen to his stories though, and I doubt he’d mind teaching you what he knows. Just keep in mind that he has some weird ideas and that we might not be able to entirely trust my mom’s drunken ramblings about him.” Then he gave Ranma his grandfather’s name and directions on how to reach the village. “Oh,” he added finally, “there’s also something dangerous about accepting earrings up there, especially girls. I’m not sure what, exactly, just that my mom would practically froth at the mouth whenever it came up and start swearing. If you somehow get offered some, especially your girl side, you should definitely say no.”

While Jun had given a few more directions and some advice regarding his grandfather, the other boys had moved over to the jungle gym and climbed to the top. The sun had dipped below the horizon, but gold and bronze bands still streaked the clouds beneath ribbons of rose and indigo sky. Ranma and Jun rambled over to the rest of the group and climbed up onto the metal structure.

Showing off a bit, Jun grabbed the bars and did a flag along the side, holding his body perpendicular to the structure. He was probably the only one in the D&D club with the muscles and core strength to pull that off. “Come on, Ranma, show us something impressive,” Yuuji goaded. “None of the rest of us can put Jun in his place.” The boys started chanting Ranma’s name, until even Jun laughed and joined in.

Ranma smirked, bowed, and did a few twists, flips, and tumbles for them. Everyone hooted and cheered. Then, to give Jun a bit back, he had him stand in a stable stance with his arms up and flexed. “Ground yourself and try not to move,” Ranma ordered with a grin. Then he braced himself on Jun’s forearm and side to do his own flag. Jun wobbled slightly but stayed upright. With a quick pull, Ranma next got himself up into a handstand on Jun’s shoulders. He then flipped around Jun’s torso a few times before springing down and through his legs into a roll and leaping back to his feet with a bow. Although Jun swayed a little, he managed to keep from falling over during the entire performance.  

Jaws dropping to their knees, the other boys soon recovered with a barrage of claps and whistles for the both of them. “That was amazing!” Tetsu exclaimed. “Like acrobats in a circus! You should totally take that act on the road to make money.”

Jun performed a sweeping bow. “Why thank you, dear fellow, but my mom might have a few choice words about me running away to the circus, alas.” Then he laughed. After clambering up to a sitting position on top of the bars, he added, “Which reminds me, Testu, that you haven’t told us your plans yet. You’re still planning on college, right?”

Tetsu smiled. “Yeah, the same one as my girlfriend. I’m actually going to do a summer internship in a biology lab before I start my freshman year too. I plan to become a research scientist in neuroscience, since I want to cure things like seizures and dementia. Seeing my uncle suffer so much before he passed away has really inspired me.” He paused to gaze out at the few stars peeking out along the darker edge of the sky.

“Good for you, man,” Ren said.

Flushing Tetsu came back to himself. “Anyways, I got to do a lab tour last weekend. It was awesome! To get neurons to test the experimental anti-seizure drugs on, like to cure epilepsy and stuff, this lab harvests them from mice. It was super cool and super gross. You might want to cover your ears if you don’t think you can handle it,” he warned in a dare, glancing around to see if anyone was sissy enough to take him up on the offer.

Of course everyone ignored his warning, instead leaning forward with anticipation as he began to explain with several sweeping hand gestures. “To make sure the mice don’t feel any pain, they quickly break the neck of a pregnant mouse, sort of like a mouse trap. Then they open her up and remove what looks like a string of sausages that contain the fetal mice. They take out the brains, put them in a tube with some chemicals, make it into a brain slurry, and then pour it out onto petri dishes. The neurons then grow over the next week into a single layer on the dish so the scientists can test their medicines on them. With a microscope, you can actually see an individual neuron connecting to another neuron on the plate! They let me watch as they touched a glass electrode to a neuron and then ran some medicine across it to slow down the electrical firing rate. People with epilepsy have brains wired wrong so their neurons either fire too much or too little. The drug was actually an experimental compound from a pharmaceutical company that didn’t have the interest or time to test it themselves. If the drug continues to work well, the lab will send it back to the company with their results to see if they can convince the company to push it into production for patients. It was so cool! From my very first year, I’m going to be able to do work that could actually lead to treatments for people suffering from seizures. I can’t wait.”

“That sounds disgusting,” Yuuji said with a disturbed face. “Give me a car to fix anytime.”

Ren gave Yuuji a shove, making him lose his balance and have to windmill his arms wildly to keep from falling to the ground. “Don’t be such a baby. They’re trying to fix people. Besides, where do you think most medicines come from? They have to test them on something before they go on to people. At least they are trying to make it as painless as possible for the animals. Tetsu is going to keep our brains from going crazy when we’re old people, so you better be nice to him,” Ren defended. Yuuji pushed Ren’s shoulder half-heartedly in response to the initial shove, but didn’t say anything else. Satisfied, Ren then he turned back to Testu, “Did you learn anything else cool?”

“Well,” Testu added, “the lab tech I’m working with told me something a bit weird. He said that people sometimes call the rope of fetal mice a string of pearls instead, because of what they look like.  Weird right? Makes me look at my mom’s pearl necklace in a different way, that’s for sure.”

Ranma froze as the phrase echoed in his mind - _string of pearls, string of pearls, STRING OF PEARLS_! Akane had bled on a dirty string and they had turned into pearls. Pearls with little wiggling shapes inside, Akane said, pearls that were connected to a rat demon, a rodent just like a mouse.

And what had the squirrel demon said to taunt him? “You cling to Akane so tightly, and in the process push her further into his arms, making it easier for him to find and take her, making it easier _for them to grow_.”

Ranma’s vision and hearing went blank as his mind _click-click-clicked_ through the connections. It all made sense now - a horrible, disturbing sense. The demon didn’t want to personally possess Akane. He probably already had another host, most likely that prophet leading the men who’d kidnapped them.

No, the rat demon wanted Akane for something else. He needed Akane to incubate his demon offspring. She’d started when her blood had begun feeding his string of pearls. But he must need to do something more to finish the process. That must be why Akane hadn’t been taken over yet, why her energy was so low, and why this confused all of the experts. This wasn’t a typical demon possession. The demon wanted Akane as a surrogate mother!

Nausea and rage swirled in a sickening miasma through his body. He needed to check on Akane. _Right now._

“Hey guys,” Ranma interrupted abruptly. “I just realized how late it is. I gotta head out.” He jumped gracefully down from the jungle gym.

“Sure, no problem Ranma. See you at school tomorrow,” Jun called. 

Forcing himself to wave back normally, Ranma turned and ran back home. When he got there though, the house was dark except for the porch light. Everyone was either still out or in bed.

Opening Akane’s door, he saw her sleeping peacefully beneath her bedcovers. Ranma couldn’t bring himself to wake her up for such horrible news. He’d tell her tomorrow.

* * *

 

The next day, Ranma had to wait until after school to talk to Akane. Pulling her aside in the dojo once they got home, he explained his conclusions about the demon energy. Then he waited to see what she had to say.

Akane had gone white and swallowed hard several times as he’d talked. When he finished, she closed her eyes, bowed her head, and covered her face with her hands for a minute. But Akane was strong.

After that moment of weakness, she briskly rubbed her face and sat up to meet his eyes. “Unfortunately, I think you are right, Ranma. It would certainly explain a lot of things that have confused the experts. Besides, it feels right inside,” a bleak smile twisted her lips. “I wish it didn’t. Who knew that there was something more horrible than demon possession? Instead, I get to incubate and probably be devoured alive by multiple baby rat demons, which will then probably go on to possess and ruin the lives of several other people. Not exactly the legacy I was hoping to leave. This is great, just great.” She laughed hopelessly.

“I’m sorry,” Ranma said. He desperately wished he had something more positive to tell her. Then he remembered Jun’s grandfather up north.

“But don’t give up yet, Akane. I have a lead on a new ki severing technique that might help. I’m going to travel to a village up north the day after we graduate,” he said. “Jun’s grandfather lives in a remote mountain village that has some special ki bonding techniques. What little he said sounded really promising. I bet I can pick up something that will help us. It might take a few weeks, but I’ll come back as soon as I can.”

At his hopeful look, Akane sent him a short and obviously forced smile. “Thanks, Ranma.”

She didn’t seem very optimistic. But Ranma had a really good feeling about this! However, he wanted Akane to feel good about it too. “If you’d prefer I wait for a bit before going to see if anything else comes up, I can wait,” he offered, “or you can come with me to see if he can help you directly.”

Akane hesitated for a moment, thinking over his words before she answered. “No, I have to stay here in case someone else comes up with a better cure first. Plus I need to keep practicing my ki integrity. I’ll be fine.  You can go and investigate for us,” Akane said, rallying her spirits. “Don’t worry. This new information is creepy, but in the end it doesn’t really change things for me. As long as I stay away from the demon and Iriomote Island, the exact details of what he wants me for don’t really matter, right? He doesn’t know where I live, after all, and I’m keeping his energy at bay so far, so I should be fine.”

“If you’re sure,” Ranma said.

“Of course I’m sure,” Akane replied. “So far my best bet seems to be trying to master manipulating my own energy so I can cut out the demon’s influence myself. No one has come up with anything else that isn’t more likely to kill me than help me anyways. Aunt Yamaguchi says that unlike an outsider picking the strands apart, instinctual self-preservation will protect me from doing anything too damaging. I just have to get good enough to be able to recognize and remove all of the demon energy.”

Akane began picking at the hem of her shirt as her speech slowed down and her eyes went unfocused. “I’m trying to stay positive, but Aunt Yamaguchi and Miaka are leaving this weekend too. I’m going to miss them. She says that I should be able to do it as long as I keep meditating and practicing the techniques she’s already shown me, but,” Akane faltered for a moment and looked away from Ranma’s face, “what she doesn’t say is that it takes people years of daily meditation and practice to achieve that level of skill, and even with that some people never master it.”

“Akane,” Ranma said helplessly, unsure what to say as he lifted his hands and then let them drop back to his lap uselessly.

Turning back to him, she flung her hands up and exclaimed, “Bah! I’m being too negative again. Don’t let my gloom worry you too much, Ranma. You know me, I’m stubborn and a hard worker. I’m sure I’ll get it if I keep trying.”

“Of course you will,” Ranma agreed fervently. He believed in Akane. _She had to get it. Failure wasn’t an option._

* * *

 

The next day passed in a blur, and then they suddenly they were at the high school graduation ceremony and being handed their diplomas. It all seemed a bit anticlimactic. As expected, Mr. Tendo was crying a river and Kasumi was all smiles. Even Ranma’s mother was there dabbing her eyes with a handkerchief in pride at his achievement, which was nice and all, but he couldn’t get his mind off the logistics of his trip up north. He was already packed and ready to go. He didn’t have the time to really care about school anymore. If it wouldn’t have upset everybody and caused too many questions that Akane didn’t want to answer, he would’ve already left.

Somehow he made it through the ceremony, dinner, and after party. He would miss the friends he’d made in school, but a lifetime of travelling with his father had made him an expert at goodbyes. If the friendship was meant to endure, they’d go to the effort of seeing each other outside of school. Otherwise, they might as well take their good memories and move on.

In the end, there was only one person whom Ranma was utterly incapable of ever letting go. There would be no final goodbye from Akane Tendo. He wouldn’t stand for it.

* * *

 

Early the next morning, Ranma stumbled through the dark and cold house with a full pack on his back. Before sunrise the house was quiet and still. He’d said his goodbyes the night before, so he planned on just grabbing a cold rice ball from and then heading out to catch the first train.

However, to his surprise the kitchen wasn’t dark or empty. “Akane,” he exclaimed softly in surprise, “what are you doing up so early?”

“I wanted to see you off,” she bit her lip and looked down shyly before taking a quick breath to say, “and to remind you that you have people waiting for you to come back home.”

“Oh,” Ranma said with surprised happiness. “Thank you.”

Akane smiled quietly and then handed him a warm mug of ochazuke - hot tea mixed with rice and seasonings. Ranma couldn’t help his swell of adoration.  He made sure to memorize the sight of her wrapped up in her old yellow robe with her hair still mussed from sleep. She was beautiful, and he didn’t want to forget a second of this quiet moment.  In the weeks to come, he could pull it out whenever he started feeling down.

“Thanks,” Ranma said again as he drank in the sight of her along with his warm breakfast. The meal even tasted good. Akane really had changed from the girl he’d first met almost three years ago.

“I’ll miss you.” The words escaped his lips without his conscious volition, but he didn’t allow himself to take them back. It was the truth.

Akane’s eyes lit up happily and a blush tinted her cheeks. It made him want to do things he didn’t really have time for if he was going to catch the first train this morning. He cleared his throat and looked away from her glowing face. “Communication isn’t very good up there, but I left the contact information for the post office at the base of the mountain. Jun said you can leave a note there or call and it’ll get up to the village eventually. If anything happens, don’t hesitate to send for me and I’ll come right home.”

Akane put her hands into the pockets of her yellow robe and sent him a half-smile. “I know. You told me all of that yesterday. I have the number in my desk. Don’t worry about me, Ranma. You take care of yourself.”

Knocking back the last of his ochazuke, Ranma put his mug in the sink. Then he turned to Akane. “I’ll be as quick as I can. Don’t push yourself so hard you make yourself sick, alright?”

Rolling her eyes, Akane tucked a loose strand of hair behind her ear as she replied with annoyance, “I’ll be fine. I know how to take care of myself, Ranma.”

Ranma let his pack fall to the floor with a thud. Then he stalked forward with intent. Akane’s eyes got wide as she stumbled backwards, until she was trapped up against the counter with no more room to retreat. Placing his hands on the cabinets to either side of her head, he looked straight into her eyes from mere inches away. She had to crane her head back sharply to compensate for their height difference, something he often forgot about because of her strong personality.

“I expect to find you in perfect health when I return. You better be here, Akane,” he demanded, looming so close he could feel the puff of her breath on his chin and the heat wafting from her robe-shrouded body in the chilly kitchen. Akane’s big brown eyes were practically shooting fire at his boldness. She opened her mouth to loose a probably scathing reply, but Ranma didn’t give her the chance.

Surging forward to close the gap between them, he lowered his head and captured her upturned lips in a scorching kiss. Only their mouths touched, but Ranma leveraged that as far as he could, slanting his lips across Akane’s again and again as he plundered the slick hot cavern of her mouth. Akane gave as good as she got, ratcheting his desire up even higher as she moaned softly and slid her tongue along the soft, vulnerable flesh just behind his lips, flicking his teeth as she retreated coyly before surging back.

Akane was driving him crazy. Gasping against her mouth, Ranma kept his arms iron straight and his hands on the cabinet, not allowing himself to pull her against his aching body as he so wished to do. He needed to find some self-control.

Somehow he managed to slow down the kiss, turn it tender and soft instead of hard and voracious. Akane smiled into his mouth, sighed, and kissed him back leisurely. Gently he kissed her bee-stung mouth, then her rosy cheeks and button nose and petal-soft eyelids, before placing one last tender kiss upon her exquisite lips.

Then Ranma forced himself to ease back and step away. Akane opened her eyes and just looked at him, breathing deeply. He couldn’t bring himself to say goodbye. Quickly memorizing the kiss-ravished look on her face, he scooped up his pack and strode out of the kitchen. He didn’t let himself look back as he let himself out of the door and began jogging towards the train station. If he looked back at Akane standing in the doorway like a beacon of light in the dark predawn, he might not be able to leave.

He’d be gone for several weeks training. However, these techniques would be the key to saving Akane, he just knew it. Then after he fixed her, he’d kiss her. Maybe then he could tell her he loved her again, only this time, Akane would smile as she said that she loved him too. Then he’d get Akane to agree to marry him. Everything was going to work out. He could feel it.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As usual, there is a bit of biased narration that means that some statements may or may not be false. We’ll have to see what’s what based on future chapters. The park stuff was inspired by Ninja Warrior and a lab tech job I worked a decade ago.
> 
> A reader pointed out that Akane has fallen asleep in class before in the manga (unlike the scenario in the last chapter). There are so many manga volumes that I’ve definitely forgotten some things. For now, however, I am ignoring that and pretending that it didn’t happen in my universe. Thanks for the heads up though! 


	35. The Graveyard and the Cabin

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I just celebrated my daughter’s 3rd birthday (PJ Masks themed for the win!). Thanks for the lovely reviews. I wrote most of chapter 35 in fall of 2016, but got stuck when I couldn’t find a chunk of my plot notes, so I got mad, frustrated, and put it on the back burner again. Finally we are back on track here in 2017!

Only a few days after Ranma left, Akane woke up in the middle of the night to a strange scratching sound. At first, she thought it a remnant from a dream, but then it came again,  _ scritch scritch. _ Uneasy, she glanced out the window. The cloudy sky reflected the yellow streetlights and faintly illuminated the trees in the backyard. It didn’t look windy enough to make any noise. 

Rubbing unsteadily at her eyes, she pushed herself up onto one elbow and peered around at the shadowed corners of her room. It hadn’t sounded like a martial artist on the roof. That sound had become very familiar over the last few years. 

Although irrational, a small spark of hope kindled in her heart.  _ Maybe Ranma had come back.  _ It was much too soon, but half-awake, Akane couldn’t hide from herself how much she desperately missed him. Like a sore tooth, she kept probing at his absence to see if it had lost the ache. So far, it hadn’t. 

Even sleeping next to him just the once had made her bed become strangely cold and lonely. It was ridiculous, but she’d found herself thinking of Ranma’s weight and warmth almost every night since. The day he’d carried her home for a nap, she’d been sinking deeper and deeper into a quicksand of depression and defeat. She might have given up and gone to Okinawa if he hadn’t scooped her up and forced her to talk. Ramna had put her feet back on solid ground. Impulsively inviting him to nap with her had made everything better. It had cleared her thoughts and given her a feeling of calm and safety. It hadn’t been permanent, but it had been exactly what she needed at that moment.

In retrospect, she realized that Ranma had needed that moment just as desperately as she had. He’d been so exhausted that he hadn’t even roused at her leaving the bed for supper or for her return to the room. Her shaking had proved ineffectual both times. 

Of course, innocently napping was one thing, but sleeping together overnight felt different, especially in such a small bed. When the moon rose high into the sky and her yawns threatened to split her face, she finally gave up on waiting for him to wake up. Annoyed, she considered dumping a cup of cold water on Ranma. 

However, she hadn’t. Instead, she’d grudgingly admitted to herself that the annoyance was a weak façade covering up the fact that deep down, she liked having him in her room, in her bed. It felt right. In fact, their nap together had been her first nightmare-free sleep in weeks. The way he’d curved his body around her made Akane feel precious and safe. Of course, with a bit more sleep to lend clarity to her thoughts, she couldn’t help the fission of heat at the thought of being pressed up against Ranma during the night either.

She was tired of avoiding him, tired of being hurt and angry. She was tired of all of it.

Akane admitted that she wanted him here. Bravado firming her jaw and nerves shaking her fingers, Akane had lifted the corner of the blanket covering her bed. Ranma lay curled away from her. Then, before her daring deserted her, she’d darted in next to her sleeping fiancé.  

Holding her breath, she’d eased into the space at his back. Yet within seconds of her knee grazing across his side, Ranma turned over. Eyes still closed, his large, calloused hands had gently but insistently pulled her into the curve of his sleep-warmed body. He’d nudged her head up onto his arm and nuzzled into her hair with a contented sigh. Before she could react, he’d wrapped his other arm protectively around her back, slipped a calf intimately between her feet, and purred almost sub-vocally. The deep sound had vibrated from his chest to hers pleasantly. Then Ranma had surrendered to an even deeper sleep. Peeking up at his face with blazing cheeks and an incredulous smile, she saw lines of tension smoothing out, leaving his face looking even more lax and peaceful. She could feel the same thing happening to herself as her eyes became too heavy to keep open. 

Having someone else sleeping in her bed should feel weird, but this didn’t. It felt natural and right. It felt like finally being whole.

Drifting into slumber, Akane realized that Ranma really did need her. He’d said it, but a vulnerable part of her still hadn’t believed, even with the evidence of the soulbond and his words of love. Just the implicit forgiveness in inviting him to nap with her had wiped his face clean of tension and strain. It had given him the peace to sleep restfully for the first time in weeks, perhaps months.   

For a moment she’d felt everything became clear. In a life filled with chaos, she, Akane Tendo, had become Ranma’s constant. He did need her. He did love her. He’d given her power over him, more than he’d inadvertently taken. 

As much as he’d committed his life to martial arts, he’d committed his heart to her. That meant he would pour just as much intensity and passion into making their relationship work as he did into fighting. He would never stop trying. Ranma wouldn’t give up when it got hard. 

Akane admired that. At the end of the day, Ranma’s good qualities really did outweigh his bad. He wasn’t perfect, but he was a very good person. Not only that, but he was good for her.

Despite the mistakes he’d made in the past and the  _ certainty _ of him making even more mistakes in the future, she cherished his generous heart. She’d certainly made plenty of mistakes. Luckily he’d forgiven her. 

Dare she even admit that she’d secretly started to cherish the soulbond between them? Looking at Ranma’s sleeping face from mere inches away, Akane had laid her hand on his chest, felt the thrum of his beating heart and the banked fire of his spirit, and accepted it. She did cherish this man. She did.

Akane came out of her memories as the strange sound repeated,  _ scritch scratch.  _ It seemed to be coming from under her desk. Shaking her head briskly, she pushed hair out of her face, leaned forward, and squinted into the shadows. 

Something moved.

Out of the blackness waddled a large rat. It looked gray in the dim light barely illuminating its mangy fur. The slice of light falling between the curtains highlighted its long whiskers and liquid obsidian eyes. The rat stopped at the food of her bed, raised its head to look her straight in the eye, and opened its mouth in a razor-toothed smiled. 

Akane shrieked and jumped up to stand in the center of her bed.

Within a minute, her dad burst into the room brandishing a bokken. Seeing the rat, he grimaced. The rat ran for the closet. Lunging, her dad bashed it with the wooden sword, killing it. Then he picked it up with the tip of his bokken and carried the limp carcass away downstairs. 

Kasumi, appearing in the hall with her robe clutched to her chest, wrinkled her nose in disgust at the sight. She turned back. “Are you alright, Akane?”

“Yeah, it just startled me,” Akane said, still shaken. “Sorry to wake everyone up.”

“That’s alright. I would’ve screamed too. Do you want me to stay with you? We can talk for a bit until you calm down enough to sleep,” Kasumi offered, already stepping forward.

However, Akane was shaking her head before Kasumi even finished speaking. She didn’t want to burden her sister with her problems. “That’s alright. You can go on back to bed.”

Eyes dimming with disappointment, but not surprise, Kasumi nevertheless offered her a sweet smile. Now Akane felt ten times worse. She felt guilty for lying to Kasumi and bad for being such an awful liar that she made Kasumi worry anyways.

“Very well, I’ll put out more traps tomorrow. I’m here if you need me. Good night, little sister.” Kasumi touched Akane’s shoulder softly and then went back into her room. 

“Horrible pests,” her father growled as he stomped back up the stairs. “If you see more, Akane, there are traps downstairs. No need to scream and wake up the whole house again over a silly little rat. We all need our sleep right now with the anniversary so near.” Looking off to the side, his eyes brimmed with tears and he started to sniffle. He didn’t notice the betrayal and disappointment on Akane’s face at his words. 

For a moment she’d forgotten how useless her father was. His rescue had brought her the first spark of warmth she’d felt since Ranma left. His words had doused that flame and left her feeling colder than ever.

Akane could no longer sleep. Adding to the pain of her father’s dismissal was the uncertainty of whether the rats were merely pests or the rat demon’s messengers. She worried over whether she was doing the right thing by hiding her problem from her sisters. Akane tossed and turned, greeting sunrise with dry, bloodshot eyes. 

The next night, Akane came in from the bath to find three more rats with beady little black eyes and sharp, yellow-stained teeth crouched on her floor of her room, staring at her knowingly. She took care of them herself, not bothering to call for her father. Snatching up her weights, she killed them with a mixture of disgust and grim satisfaction. After disposing of their bodies, she raided the pantry and circled her bed with traps. 

At random hours of the night, she'd jolt upright to the brisk snap of the traps springing closed. Every morning, the number of rodent bodies grew. Akane’s already tortured sleep became even more fitful. 

Little more than a week after Ranma left, Akane felt her strength disappearing. Her broken sleep made it hard to focus on meditation, much less removing the demon’s tendrils from her core. The cord connecting her to Ranma also seemed to thin with distance. Akane realized with frustration that much of her strength lately had been coming from Ranma instead of being internally generated. Either learning a new technique or the distance had made it too difficult to keep sending her energy. 

Akane hated feeling weak, but at the end of the day she was just a stubborn human girl facing off against a supernatural demon and the malignant influence of his parasitic offspring. Sometimes the only thing keeping her going was her promise to Ranma. Food lost all savor and hope was rapidly drowning in a world of looming shadows filled with beady little eyes.

Of course, no one in the family realized the truth. They didn’t want to face it and she couldn’t bring herself to challenge their assumptions. Without knowing if they’d make things better or, much more likely, even worse, it didn’t seem worth the effort or risk of talking to them about it.

Meanwhile, everyone was caught up in their renewed grieving at the anniversary of Mother's death, especially her father. When expectant looks and long silences failed to get Akane to open up about her problems, Kasumi finally excused Akane’s waning appetite on the anniversary and Ranma's absence and didn’t probe further. Akane let her. 

Then Nabiki came home from college to visit the grave.

"Akane, you look like death!" Nabiki exclaimed in shock. “What happened to you?” Everyone blinked and turned to stare. Akane felt horribly self-conscious. Even her fanciest kimono couldn’t conceal her deteriorating health. Unsure what to say, she kept silent.

Finally Kasumi said, "She’s been eating and exercising less than usual.” 

Blinking red-rimmed eyes, Dad went white and swayed, leaning heavily against the wall. "Don’t tell me my baby’s seriously sick. I wouldn’t survive it," he gasped, on the verge of collapse.

"No, no, I'm fine," Akane reassured him, trying to smile naturally despite the urge to grit her teeth. "The rats in the walls are keeping me up at night, but you know me, I'll be fine. Don't worry. Let's just go and visit Mom's grave." 

Immediately distracted, her dad sniffled and turned to gaze soulfully at her mother's portrait. Akane had to kick down a surge of resentment.  _ Why must her father make everything, even Akane’s dying, all about himself? Why couldn’t she ever lean, even if just for a moment, on his strength?  _ But now wasn’t the time for outbursts. Today was about honoring her mother.

Kasumi picked up her bag and then touched Akane's arm sympathetically. Quietly she said, "I wish you felt comfortable talking to me. I just want to help."

"I’m fine," Akane repeated again, filled with the usual guilt at her sister’s concern. "Don't worry." Sighing, Kasumi turned and followed their father down the street. Nabiki hummed doubtfully, but thankfully didn't say anything more.

And so the family took their annual pilgrimage to the cemetery. Everyone wore their nicest kimono and solemn expressions. Looking around at her family, Akane suddenly realized that everyone was getting old. The gray that had once only speckled her father’s temples had overtaken half his hair and the lines bracketing his mouth had turned into grooves. Kasumi’s face had finally lost the last hint of youthful roundness. Even Nabiki seemed more severely mature and less mischievous these days.                

Their Mother’s gravestone stood at the base of a small hill with a solitary cherry tree sighing overhead. The family had barely paused in respect and sadness before Father collapsed onto the ground. Curled small at what would be Mother’s feet, he rocked back and forth as he cried. 

Recalled to their duties, Akane and her sisters wiped away their quiet tears and fell into the routine. Kasumi fetched water while Akane started sweeping the surrounding area clean of leaves and twigs. Nabiki cleared  the debris of old flowers and offerings away from the stone itself. Once Kasumi returned, the sisters scrubbed the stone free of moss and dirt until it gleamed in the sun.

Finally coming back to himself, Dad sat up and opened the bag at his side. Sniffling, he carefully arranged a fresh offering of mom’s favorite flowers and sweets in front of the grave. Then he wilted back into himself once more, useless. Nabiki sighed and pulled the incense out of the bag in his limp fingers, placing it in a little cup on the gravestone. Kasumi lit a match, lighting the incense. The cloying scent quickly filled the air. 

They all shed tears when Kasumi offered several sweet, heartfelt words over the gravestone. Nabiki never said her words publically anymore, and Daddy could never get anything coherent out past his snivelling, but usually Akane liked to say a few things too. This year, her mind felt blank. At her sister’s expectant looks, she merely shook her head wearily and looked away. They slowly packed back up.

Akane had already come by last week. She'd told her mother everything. Although she wanted to live, part of her found comfort in knowing that her mother waited for her on the other side. If things didn’t work out, someone else would have to do the sweeping next year, but she knew her sisters and father would visit her just as faithfully as they now visited her mother. The plot of ground next to her mother had been kept empty for her father, but he wouldn’t begrudge Akane taking his place. It would make the visits easier.

Suddenly, she did find something to say. Kneeling back down on the sun-warmed earth, Akane wiped a teardrop from her cold cheek and then touched it to the name carved in the stone. “Always loved, never forgotten, when soon we meet, our pain will be rewarded with joy.” For a moment, she felt filled with peace. Nabiki gave her a strange look, but Akane didn’t respond. 

Standing up, she joined her sisters in heaving their father to his feet. Then they slowly returned home. Her dad, a weeping, inconsolable mess as expected, retreated to his room the minute they got home to wallow in his misery. Hopefully, Mr. Saotome would draw him back to the land of the living after a few weeks. Before that, her dad had taken months to recover, only to repeat the cycle again the next year. 

The girls shared a small, solemn lunch together before drifting off to their own comforts. Akane changed into casual clothes and tried to ignore the ache throbbing behind her eyes. Unable to settle with a book or the tv, and not having the strength to break bricks, she finally retreated to the dojo to go through a few kata.

A few hours later, Nabiki walked into the dojo where Akane struggled through her fitful meditation. Nabiki’s piercing stare broke Akane’s feeble concentration. Her sister shut the shoji with firm finality. 

Nabiki walked over to stare down at Akane, one hand cocked on her hip. When silence didn’t produce anything, she spoke curtly. "Something is wrong with you and I want to know what it is." 

"I'm fine." Looking away, Akane tried to grasp after the fleeting serenity broken by Nabiki's entrance.

"It's obvious why you won't tell Dad, and since Kasumi has to take care of him and the house and sometimes prefers to be oblivious, I can understand you not wanting to bother her, even if I don’t agree with it, but I’m not her. Stop lying, Akane, and tell me."

Akane looked up at her sister and sighed, "There's nothing to tell. I'm fine." If she kept repeating that, maybe it would even come true.

Rolling her eyes, Nabiki plopped down and brought her chin to rest on her fist. "You've always been a horrible liar. Plus, you look as sallow-faced as Gosunkugi. Is it Ranma being gone? My sources told me that the other girls are pretty much out of the picture and, despite some  _ unusual _ interactions between the two of you, he's been all about  _ you _ lately."

Akane didn't even have the energy to blush at her sister's insinuating tone. "Fine, you caught me,” Akane said flatly. “I miss him. Are we done now?"

Looking bewildered, Nabiki chewed on her lower lip. "But he’s only been gone a week, unless… did you finally tell him you loved him and he rejected you? Is he not coming back now that he’s graduated, is that it?" Now she looked angry, "Because I can track him down and make him pay for it, the jerk. You're my sister. Just say the word."

Akane smiled wryly, flattered by her sister’s devotion. "No, Ranma's been punished enough."

"For what? How? And are you admitting that he did reject you? Or not?" Nabiki pushed with frustration.

Shaking her head, Akane wished her problems were as so simple. Suddenly she felt utterly exhausted. "Rejection isn’t the problem."

"No?” A calculating look flashed across Nabiki’s face. “Then what? Did he actually admit to liking you? I’ve always suspected that he was head over heels and just too stubborn to say it first. Come on, tell me," she wheedled.

Akane couldn't find the energy to dissemble anymore and suddenly didn't want to. She was sick of silence and lies, her own and from others. This was her sister. Nabiki had always been strong. Maybe she needed to trust her to be able to handle it. 

Besides, Ranma's feelings for her were the one good thing in the midst of this whole tragedy. "He did say it first," Akane shared, lips curving in a faint smile.

Nabiki blinked hard, her chin slipping off her hand. "What, really? How? When?"

Of course, that brought things back to the tragedy part of it all. Mouth drooping again, Akane sighed and looked away, "In the middle of a horrible argument about his lies and my rapidly approaching death, of course."

In the lengthening silence, Akane looked up to see Nabiki's face drawn tight as she worked to assign a more benign meaning to Akane’s stark words. "Just kidding," Akane scrambled, trying to erase that look from her sister's face. "You know Ranma and me, always arguing. Forget I said anything."

"No, I won't forget," Nabiki suddenly growled. "If you’re trying to protect me by lying, just  _ stop it _ .” 

Guiltily, Akane felt like a hypocrite. Hadn’t she lambasted Ranma for this very behavior? Yet she found herself falling into it herself.

Nabiki sat up and fisted her hands on her lap. “What did you mean by your rapidly approaching death? Are you sick? Like mom? Is that what you've been hiding, afraid we wouldn’t be able to handle it?"

When Akane bit her lip and searched for the right words, Nabiki breathed out shakily and struggled to compose her face. Akane rubbed her forehead hard and looked away. It made her heart hurt to see Nabiki’s fear. "I'm not sick, not like mom." Akane offered what comfort she could.

"Then what, Akane? You look horrible and Ranma was desperate enough to admit his feelings and then disappear the morning after graduation. Obviously it’s bad. Just tell me!" Nabiki demanded stridently.

So Akane did. 

However this was her sister, not only a master interrogator but someone who loved and really knew Akane. Unlike all the other times Akane told her story, this time she couldn’t help revealing her feelings of pain, fear, and betrayal, her love and desperate hope. Halfway through the story, Nabiki surprised Akane by pulling her against her side in a fierce hug. Huddled against the wall with her head on her older sister's shoulder, Akane unpacked the whole tangle of horror about the demon, the hurt of P-chan’s identity, and the complication of Ranma's lies and love. Months of hiding from everyone, of lying to her family, of only revealing the truth to a handful of people, had left Akane feeling desperately alone.

But she wasn’t alone, something reminded her with a whisper of fur. Ranma had screwed up, but he’d stayed with her, trying to earn her forgiveness, trying to protect her every step of the way. She had a bit of his soul inside her, always watching over her, determined to love her. In her darkest hours, that bit of Ranma had sent her catfist dreams and tried to comfort her with phantom purrs. Those strange but soothing influences had kept her going this year. Surprised, she realized that she’d miss them if they were gone. 

"OK,” Nabiki said wryly, “I'm in-between wanting to punch Ranma for lying to you and making this demon mess worse, and kissing him for keeping you alive for us." 

Akane cracked an unexpected smile and looked up into Nabiki’s face, "See, we're more alike than you think, big sis, because that's been my reaction too."

Shaking her head, Nabiki squeezed her shoulder one more time and then carefully stood up. "I need to think all this over and figure out how I can help, because there’s no way you’re not beating this." She stopped and looked Akane dead in the eyes. "Thank you for telling me. I'd rather know about it all, even that awful prophecy about your death. I'd always rather know." Akane gave her a guilty nod. 

Then Nabiki shook herself. "Enough heavy conversation. Let's go inside for dinner."

"I'm not hungry," Akane sighed. "I'll just keep practicing in here."

"Nope." Nabiki unexpectedly grabbed Akane's hand and hauled her to her feet. "No more skipping meals. I don't care if you're not hungry. You need food to keep your body strong enough to fight off this demon. By making yourself weak, you're letting him win. Besides, Ranma won't be happy to come back and see you looking like this. I won't tell Dad and Kasumi, though I think Kasumi should know, but you have to keep taking care of yourself. If you don’t, they’ll get suspicious. So come on."

"Fine," Akane capitulated with another sigh.

Over the next few days, Nabiki made sure to nag Akane to eat and exercise regularly. It helped a little, but not enough. The lack of sleep took its toll on her. Akane felt like she was treading water, barely keeping her head above the waves.

Each day Kasumi's looks became more and more probing. She kept wandering by Akane's meditation to check up on her. She even invited Dr. Tofu over for dinner. The poor man kept giving Akane sad looks for not being able to help. He looked positively tortured at having to keep secrets from Kasumi.  When Kasumi conspired to leave him alone with Akane for a few minutes to chat about Akane’s health, they both sat in uncomfortable silence. At Kasumi’s hopeful look on returning, Dr. Tofu finally cracked, doing a dance with the coat rack while laughing awkwardly and then disappearing out the window. That hadn’t happened in years. The dismay and guilt on Kasumi’s face broke Akane’s heart.

Akane felt ashamed. “Kasumi? Can I talk to you?” she asked, winding her fingers in the hem of her shirt.

Immediately Kasumi stopped clearing the table and knelt down by Akane’s side. “Of course.”

“I’m sorry I haven’t said anything. I didn’t want you to worry,” Akane said, wanting to make sure she apologized first. Then Akane told Kasumi the truth. 

It didn’t go well. Kasumi tried to stay calm and serene, but between one second and the next tears started dripping down her face and soon she was sobbing so hard that she began having trouble breathing. Akane, crying herself at her oldest sister’s reaction, had to run and get Nabiki to help calm them both down. 

The three sisters stayed physically close that evening, trying to both give and receive comfort with Akane’s black fate looming ahead. Kasumi kept finding excuses to touch Akane and Nabiki. Unable to concentrate on cooking, Kasumi even had Nabiki order takeout for dinner. 

Despite the commotion of Kasumi’s crying, Akane running for Nabiki, and the loud deliveryman at the door, father didn’t notice anything unusual from where he huddled in his room. When Mr. Saotome dragged him out for a few hours, he didn’t even remark on Kasumi’s swollen eyes. 

Then they ran out of rat traps.

"This isn't working," Akane finally confessed to Nabiki in despair. "Any minute I feel like the situation in the house is going to either implode into wailing or else explode in an invasion of demon-sent mercenaries."

Nabiki firmed her lips and nodded, "Then let's get you out of here."

"But... I promised Ranma not to leave without him." Despite her protest, the lure of running away was strong. She’d love to leave behind the nightly rodent symphony and her father’s self-absorbed wailing.

"You won't be abandoning Ranma or doing something stupid like going back to Okinawa by yourself, you'll merely be relocating until he gets back," Nabiki said persuasively. "I've already got it all set up. My friend has a fully stocked cabin in the woods. She goes dirt biking every year at the start of fall, but she said you can use it for the next couple of months. Just don’t touch her babies in the garage. You need to focus on shoring up your spirit. That means getting away from the stress of the house, especially all of these disgusting rats, which seem to be drawn to you and probably that demon rat clinging to your aura."

"There are rats in the woods too," Akane pointed out weakly.

"But not as many. With you gone, they’ll hopefully lose interest and stop bothering the rest of us. Besides, woodrats have to be less repulsive than the sewer rats we have here in town," Nabiki argued back, sensing victory. "You can go up there and focus in peace. I'll keep you up to date on the news here at home. When Ranma gets back, I'll send him up there. You know you love being out in the woods. It'll be good for you."

Akane gave in. "All right, but what'll we tell people?"

Smirking, Nabiki tossed her hair. "That we're going to fumigate the house to get rid of the rats. It’ll even be true. Dad can go stay with Mr. Saotome for a change. I'm going to send Kasumi to that literature retreat she's been eyeing while I go wrap up some loose ends with a few of my contacts on campus. I've got it handled." 

It was nice to let someone else worry about the details for a while. Nodding gratefully, Akane left to go and pack.  

* * *

 

Nabiki had been right. A few weeks in the woods had done wonders for Akane. Her health and focus had improved, though she still wasn’t anywhere near her normal, robust health. Nevertheless, she tried to be optimistic. She hadn't seen a rat since she'd gotten here, so only nightmares and thoughts of the future kept her from sleeping instead of rodents creepily staring and squeaking. Her meditation exercises were also going better than ever. It helped to be surrounded by the simple beauty of nature. She even had a natural hot springs nearby with a gorgeous view of the lower valley. She could see a quaint little town down there boasting its own airstrip for vintage plane enthusiasts. Sometimes she’d watch them fly around.

Meditating became natural. Her efforts started to pay off as she began to identify and tease apart the ties around her spirit. She always felt a little burst of lightness and pleasure when she cut away a piece of the demon. Sometimes when her concentration wavered, the demonic bonds she’d pulled out would break free and scurry back into hiding before she could destroy them, but she was getting better. 

Every now and then she could feel the feline spirit Ranma had shared with her watching and approving of her efforts. He’d purr at her and sometimes even nudge her gently. Other times he’d help her hunt down the demon’s ties, pouncing on them to keep them from escaping while she painstakingly untangled them from the cord made up of her and Ranma’s ki.

It was hard work, though. Finding and removing a single strand could take most of the day. Sometimes, it left her ill and shaking. Plus, if she forgot to take breaks to eat and move around, she got worn down even faster. 

Akane missed Ranma with a wistful sort of ache. She felt closest to him during meditation. When she got tired, headachy, and ill from trying to pick apart the demon from her spirit, she'd sometimes take a little break. It had become her guilty pleasure ever since her feline companion had shown her how. 

Deep inside her spirit, she’d look for a spot where the weave of Ranma’s binding lay thick and complex, like a hammock suspended between the trees of her soul. Then she’d ease back into the weave he’d created and let herself rest. Unlike a real hammock, the strings moved to embrace her warmly, sending feelings of affection and safety as it rocked her back and forth. Soothed, Akane found herself languidly caressing the strings enfolding her body. 

The first time she'd done it innocently, unthinkingly. The strings had rippled luxuriantly up into her touch and then wound closer around her consciousness. At that point, she’d remembered that they were actually a direct connection to Ranma’s and his cat-side's spirit.  _ What if Ranma could feel her touching him? _ Self-conscious, she’d stopped.

A few days later, curiosity and boredom overcame her scruples. Akane decided to experiment. A soft, drifting touch made the strands feel almost drowsy with contentment. She impishly wondered if Ranma was having trouble staying awake. Conversely, plucking the strings made them feel awake and attentive. Akane wondered if somehow they could actually communicate this way beyond vague emotions.  _ Was Ranma sensing anything from her? _

Winding a thread of his spirit around her metaphorical finger, however, seemed the most dangerous touch of all. It made Ranma feel closer to her, more substantial. Lying back into the weave, each additional loop made Ranma’s spirit feel sharper, like she was dragging him nearer until he strained just out of reach, as if braced above her body with muscles trembling with excitement to bridge the small gap separating their bodies. 

One day while missing Ranma dreadfully, Akane lay back into the embrace of his spirit, wound a thread around her finger, and absently thought about the last time she'd seen him, when they’d kissed in the kitchen. Sighing wistfully, she’d rubbed the threads on her fingers across her lips. Immediately the threads went hot, buzzing with electric current and snapping with arousal. She’d gasped in shock as she suddenly felt the heavy press of his spirit against hers. 

Akane knew in that moment that Ranma was thinking about her with all of his attention, that Ranma wanted to be holding her in his arms and kissing her again. She desperately wanted the same as she clenched down on the threads in her hands and unselfconsciously projected her own desire. She could practically feel Ranma stop breathing. Then he started gathering his power to do something about it. 

What that something was she'd never find out. Before she could, an external force splashed across Ranma like a bucket of ice water. He flinched and turned to meet the attack. Akane released the loops on her fingers as if burned, snapping open her physical eyes. Somehow, she’d forgotten that Ranma was probably training in a new technique right now, trying to help her, and shouldn’t be distracted.

Akane tried to be more careful with winding Ranma’s threads after that, especially when she noticed something troubling. Just as her fingers provocatively tugged him closer, the tie to his physical body tautly held him back. Akane liked the feeling a little bit too much, so it took her a while to notice that the tension felt like it could be dangerous. 

_ What if pulling too hard ripped his spirit loose from its moorings? What if it hurt him? _ Something instinctively told her that snapping those ties would be bad. Regretfully, she decided to stop experimenting.

Losing those moments of closeness made Akane feel more lonely, but her mood didn’t take a real dive until she decided to take a day to evaluate her spirit’s general wellbeing. During the last few weeks she’d cut a lot of the demon’s tendrils. She hoped to find some positive evidence of all of her hard work. 

Descending into her meditation, Akane methodically examined the landscape of her spirit. With pride she noticed that she couldn’t find any more of the demon’s tendrils trying to sneak around her defenses. Then she pulled back for a broader view, something she hadn’t done in a while as it made the ties hard to see.

However, all of her new experience allowed Akane to understand something she’d previously dismissed. The ties she’d been destroying had been hard to see from far away because of a weird, blurry shadow. Widening her focus, Akane felt her heart jump to her throat and then drop to her heels. The shadow she’d been unintentionally, ignorantly ignoring was actually a tower of demon energy digging deep into her core and soaring off into the distance. She’d been lopping off thorns while the demon merrily went on his way sowing acres of vines and building himself monuments. Discouraged and despairing, she fled to the real world and went for a long walk.

Twilight finally drove her weary feet back to the cabin. Nabiki was due with supplies soon. If she found Akane gone, she’d think the worst and call in a search party. 

Coming in through the garage, Akane made sure to remove her muddy boots. She placed them on the mat at the base of the stairs leading inside. However, weariness and the siege on her soul conspired to make her clumsy. 

As Akane rose unsteadily from untying her shoelaces, her arm knocked into a large, cloth covered lump. It tipped over with a metallic clang. Startled and unbalanced, Akane fell, scraping her knees and the palms of her hands on the rough cement floor.  

Swearing under her breath, Akane realized that the cloth-covered lump was one of the owner’s precious dirt bikes. She vaguely remembered Nabiki saying not to touch the things. Leaning over, Akane wrestled it upright, but it wouldn’t stay standing. Finally she ripped the cloth off, found and engaged the kickstand so hard that the gas tank sloshed, and then covered it up again with an aggrieved huff. Limping inside, Akane threw herself into a chair to sulk. 

Nabiki drove up a few minutes later. “What’s with the flushed cheeks and pouty lip?” she asked while unpacking food and a handful of letters. 

At Akane’s stony silence, Nabiki just shrugged and then distracted Akane with gossip about their old friends and her newest money-making adventures. Unwittingly Akane found herself drawn into a conversation. She did feel better afterwards though. As usual, Nabiki stayed the night and then took off the next morning.

After she left, Akane tried to keep up her good mood by looking through her mail before going back to the probably futile pruning of the demonic tendrils. Wrenching her attention to the first note, Akane smiled wistfully as she read the postcard from Yuka and Sayuri detailing their graduation trip to Australia. On seeing a letter from Miaka, her pulse began to pound with hope, but unfortunately it didn’t contain any new ideas on how to solve Akane's demon problem or avoid the prophecy about her certain death. Instead, Miaka gave a quick apology, described her new home, and complained about her pregnancy, before ending with a few awkward but sincere attempts at encouragement.

Fortified slightly by hearing from her friends, she opened the two letters on University letterheads. Earlier that spring, right in the midst of the traumatic revelations about the state of her soul, Akane had received acceptance letters to both of the Universities she’d applied for. One had even sent an offer of scholarship from her math Sensei’s former department as long as she participated in the Intercollegiate Martial Arts Math Games each term for the first two years. 

She’d told no one. 

After all, what did it matter? According to prophesy, she’d be dead soon. How could she take a spot away from some other deserving student who could actually make something of it?

Rejections penned, she’d been about to mail them when Ranma had ambushed her at school and forced her to go home and take a nap. After sleeping by his side, life had seemed a bit less bleak, so she’d changed her refusal to a request for deferral. 

Holding her breath, Akane ripped open the letters. The first college merely invited her to apply again the following year. Sighing, she set it to the side and picked up the other letter. The second college had agreed to hold her place, but not the scholarship. It did offer to submit her for the scholarship again if no one more qualified applied in the interim. 

Akane felt disappointed. She’d hoped for more. Then again, both could have insisted she reapply.  If she was still alive next fall, she’d deal with it then. 

For last, she saved a letter with no name or return address. The paper looked rustic and homemade. The writing was a mixture of poorly written characters and thickly applied ink. She had an ember of hope that the letter would contain the key to save her, but she tried not to get too excited.

As she slowly cracked the wax seal, she noticed that it had already been opened. Someone had then expertly resealed it. Sighing with annoyance, Akane recognized her sister’s technique. 

Folded around the letter with its clumsy handwriting was a roughly torn slip of notebook paper. She recognized the handwriting on the paper as Nabiki’s, which begged the question of why she’d even bothered resealing the letter again. Probably habit.  

Pulling out Nabiki’s note, Akane unfolded it. “ _ For what it's worth, Ranma got a similar letter too.” _

Baffled, Akane pulled out the letter, turned it over, and jumped to the end for the sender. Seeing Ryoga’s name, she dropped the letter as if burned. Head full of steam, she shot to her feet and immediately stalked out of the cabin before she ripped the letter into shreds. 

After a long walk and a calming soak in the hot springs, Akane slogged back to the house. Kicking off her ruined house slippers, she tossed them in the trash. Akane padded barefoot over to the sink and gulped down a large glass of water.  Bracing her hands on the counter, Akane cracked her neck from side to side. She blew out a long breath and straightened her spine. 

Turning, she marched back into the living room and knelt down on the rug. Akane picked the letter up off the floor with two fingers, as you would when handling something disgusting or dangerous. Then she gritted her teeth and began to read.

_ Dear Akane, _

_ I'm sorry. I messed up.  _

_ I never realized that my actions were disrespecting you. I've done a lot of hard thinking, listened to hours of advice from random strangers, and read two popular self-help books. I could explain how becoming your P-chan started out as an innocent accident-  _

[Heavy black lines scribbled out the next two lines, almost tearing through the paper.]

_ -but you don’t need my excuses. If I knew what you needed and could give it to you, I would. You’re a wonderful person who I care about a lot. A LOT. You've always been a good friend to me and I ruined that. I also put you in the middle of my feud with Ranma and I’ve been told that was wrong. Sorry again. I acted dishonorably. I feel bad, really bad. Please believe that I never have and never would reveal any of your secrets. If you can't believe that, I won't blame you. I can only repeat that I am sorry. I hope you know that your honor is still pure and bright. If you can't forgive me, I hope you can quickly forget any hurt I've caused you. I'll try not to bother you again.  _

_ Really and truly sorry,  _

_ your servant, _

_ Hibiki Ryoga  _

Sniffling, Akane roughly wiped tears off her cheeks with the back of her hand. The letter dropped to her lap as she drifted into a light, meditative state. Akane turned over his apology in her mind. Ryoga had really hurt her. She'd probably never be able to trust him so completely again. Considering the years of lies from him and Ranma, she’d have trouble trusting any boy so openly again.

However... she was currently dying at an accelerating rate. If she'd just found one big demon incursion, it stood to reason that there were probably even more hiding from her novice senses. In the grand scheme of things, her continued resentment took energy she didn't have to spare. Stubborn resentment had never gotten her anything worth having. She'd already started forgiving Ranma for a lot.  _ Did she have it in her to forgive Ryoga too?  _

_ And if she was granting forgiveness, should she broaden her scope? Could she start forgiving Ukyo? Forgiving Mousse and Cologne, forgiving even Shampoo, despite the lack of any apology for the hurts they’d caused?  _

The world quieted as Akane contemplated her answer. Her self-help books had all stressed that forgiveness was a process. However, the negative emotions made her feel so heavy. They dragged her down.

_ I want to try _ , she realized with surprise. 

Licking dry lips, Akane looked at the gently floating dust motes illuminated by the sun streaming in through the window. For a second, she marveled at how mere specks of dirt could sparkle beneath the sun’s benevolent hand.  _ Could forgiving similarly transform her hurts? Could it transmute her filthy emotions into something beautiful and light?  _

Akane gathered her bravery and pushed past the pressure trying to paralyze her tongue. Her words were soft, but clear. "I’m forgiving you, Ryoga." Something deep in her heart unclenched. It felt good.

"I’m forgiving all of you," Akane whispered. A sense of peace swelled sweetly in her breast, like a stream of clear water moving over and through her, washing away the debris. A floating feeling of peace followed her all through the day and buoyed her gently into a dreamless sleep.

The next morning, all of Akane’s worries sadly returned. After several minutes of searching for her house slippers, she finally remembered that she’d ruined them the day before by wearing them outside when she’d fled the swell of emotions caused by Ryoga’s letter. She’d have to bring out some more from the coat closet later. 

Barefoot, she forced herself to walk across the chilly floorboards and go into the kitchen to make breakfast. Unable to stomach more than a few bites, Akane dropped her almost full bowl in the sink. The little she’d eaten made her stomach queasy. Grimacing, she pulled on socks and laced up her hiking boots. Hopefully a walk would give her enough peace and energy to renew the fight against the demon invading her soul.

Unfortunately once outside, she found the sky full of low, murky gray clouds that muffled the sunshine into a muted, directionless glow. The shadowed woods felt cold as she walked, their usually vibrant colors unexpectedly monochrome. Fitful breezes caused the leaves to hiss sibilantly overhead and flutter out of the corner of her eyes. It made Akane jumpy. When the raindrops finally began to fall, her shirt clung clammily to her skin. 

Becoming more agitated the farther she walked, Akane finally gave up on finding any peace in the great outdoors. Turning, she began jogging back to the cabin. All too soon she became winded. Taking a bend in the path too quickly, she slipped on a patch of wet leaves and went sprawling down the slope, painfully knocking her head against a tree truck. A month ago, she would have been able to catch herself, but despite her daily walks, the demon's influence had sapped her strength.

Akane pushed herself up and spit out dirt with disgust. Her left cheek throbbed painfully and her ears rang. She hoped she hadn’t given herself a concussion. 

Raising her eyes from the muck now coating her clothing, she came face to face with a fat brown rat. It sat frozen on a log next to the trail. Realizing it had been noticed, it squeaked and took a slow step back. 

Inside Akane's spiritual core, something foreign surged at the sound. Before she knew it, the demon energy reached out and took advantage of her dazed state to grab hold of her vocal cords, copying something Ranma’s cat had done once on Iriomote Island. Air unexpectedly exploded from her lungs in a rising hiss. The rat jerked as if struck by lightning.

Horrified, Akane cut off the sound. Manipulating her ki, she kicked the demon energy back and heaved a snarling, hissing cord of Ranma’s feline energy at it. Then she lunged frantically for the rat. 

But she was dizzy and it was small and fast. Dodging her grasping fingers, the rat zig-zagged away. Gasping desperately, she spun on her knees, trying to follow, but it was too late. The rat had disappeared into the dripping shadows. 

Crying out with angry despair, Akane rammed her fist into a fallen log, splitting it and spinning the pieces off in opposite directions with a cracking squelch. Despondent, she forced herself to her feet and limped back to the cabin. Although she tried to spend the rest of the day in meditation, she had no luck rooting out anymore demonic tendrils. That night her sleep became elusive as she jumped at every unexpected squeak and scratch. Not even the mental brush of fur could bring Akane peace.

 


	36. The Hot Spring and the Kata

 

Loping at a steady pace across Nerima, Ranma couldn't wait to see Akane again. It had been almost a month, much longer than he’d intended. The separation had felt both painful and frustrating. Ranma hadn’t been able to sense her precise location in weeks, just a vague sensation of her in the south. 

In contrast, Akane seemed to be learning how to strum the string of ki connecting their souls. Ranma wished he knew if it was intentional. Her teasing touches when he least expected it had kept him on his toes and given him several very vivid dreams. He looked forward to seeing if she'd be as bold with her touches in person. There hadn’t been many of them, but he’d memorized each gossamer contact.

Unable to stop the excitement pulling up the corners of his mouth, Ranma jumped over the wall of the Tendo's yard and trotted up to the door. Letting himself in, he heard cheerful conversation coming from around the corner and smelled Kasumi’s delicious cooking. He'd timed his return perfectly.

"Tadaima," he called, letting Akane, and the rest of them, know that he’d returned home. Placing his pack against the wall, he removed his dusty shoes and stepped into his still waiting house slippers. Then he strode into the dining room, anticipation putting a spring into his step.

"Welcome back," Kasumi greeted him. Mouth full and face flashing with calculation, Nabiki lifted her fingers in a brisk salute.  He hadn't seen the middle Tendo sister since the winter holidays, when she’d told them all she wasn’t planning on staying home for the summer. He wondered what had changed. In front of the tv sat Mr. Tendo, huddled in a blanket and clutching a bowl of rice to his chest as he watched a raucous game show. He lifted red-rimmed eyes to Ranma for a moment and tipped his head in greeting, like a turtle coming out of his shell, before retreated back into his blanket and the lure of the TV. 

The loud program had made Ranma expect a fuller room. Also Akane. He wanted to see Akane.

Ranma must have looked a little lost, because Kasumi offered, "Your father was here for most of the day, but he had to go back to your mother's house for the evening." 

In a moment of vertigo, Ranma wondered if they'd moved him out while he'd been gone.  _ Was this no longer his home? Was he expected to sleep at his mother's house now instead of the Tendo's? _

Even more pressing than his own place of residence, however, was the whereabouts of his missing fiancee. "Is Akane upstairs?" he demanded.

Putting her chopsticks down with a click, Nabiki folded her arms. "She’s gone, left a couple of weeks ago." 

Ranma felt his knees go weak and his vision flash white with terror. Akane had promised not to return to Okinawa without him. She'd  _ promised _ not to leave without telling him -  _ full stop. _

_ Had the demon forced her to leave or had she run off voluntarily? _ He hadn't been able to pinpoint her location since he'd left, but he'd assumed that had to do with distance and how the demon had weakened their connection. Something blocked him even now from sensing her.  _ Was it because she was in Okinawa? What if her touches hadn’t been flirtation, but instead a plea for help?  _

_ Stupid Akane, why did you ignore your promise to stay here?  _ Terror warred with anger and guilt.

Throttling down his emotions, Ranma forced himself to focus. "Where is Akane," he growled at Nabiki, his breath short and his body deceptively relaxed. He didn’t have any interest in being more polite.

"Why do you care?" Nabiki asked flippantly, leaning forward to prop her chin on her hands. 

"Nabiki," Kasumi chided. Mr. Tendo didn't bother turning around from the tv, not even noticing the tension in the room.

Raising an eyebrow, Nabiki didn't bother looking away from Ranma’s face. "Well?  _ Cat _ got your tongue?" she smirked.

Suppressing the urge to either slap her across the face or snarl viciously, Ranma instead stalked forward and stared her down, not bothering to hide his violent thoughts or the aura flaring along his skin. "Where. Is. Akane." 

Nabiki swallowed hard and looked away.   "She's my sister," she answered weakly.

"And she's my fiancee," Ranma bit out, on the verge of doing something that seemed a logical response to his one, most precious person being in danger and the information about it being withheld, but that Akane would probably think inappropriate, especially when used on her sister.

"Not your only fiancee," Nabiki tossed out with a bit more spirit, her mouth firming.

Taking one, deliberate step closer, Ranma loomed over Nabiki menacingly. "Yes, she is. Akane is my one and only for  _ everything _ . She knows that. Now  _ tell me _ or so help me, Nabiki, I will  _ make you _ ."

Closing her gaping mouth with a click, Kasumi turned from Ranma to look at her sister fearfully. "Nabiki," Kasumi fretted, “just tell him.”

"Oh, fine," Nabiki sprawled back onto her cushion and looked away with forced nonchalance. "I suppose he passed the test."

"What test?" Ranma spit out, still on high alert.

"To see if you'd admit that you cared about her to the rest of us," Nabiki drawled after a quick look at her dad. "To see if you deserved to see her again after the things you did. She finally told us, you know, how you forced her, deceived her, and made this whole situation worse." 

Her words hit squarely and Ranma almost flinched, suddenly on the defensive. Flicking his eyes over to where Mr. Tendo had started to snore in front of the tv, he tilted his head in inquiry. Nabiki rolled her eyes, pursed her lips in disgust, and shook her head negatively.  

Nodding in relief at not having to deal with their fathers’ drama, Ranma circled back to his most pressing concern. "Where is Akane? Is she safe?"

"She's fine," Kasumi soothed, piling a plate high with food and placing it in front of him on the table. Then she added sotto voce, "Or at least no worse."

"Then why isn't she here?" Ranma demanded with frustration.

Flicking her hair behind her ear, Nabiki waved a hand in the air. "Sit down, stop looming, and eat some dinner while we explain." 

Lowering himself to his heels, Ranma took a begrudging bite of rice. Then he stared at her with eyebrows raised. "So," he prompted.

"Oh, fine," Nabiki said. "Akane is safe and sound, loverboy. I saw her a few days ago."

"But why isn't she here?" Ranma clenched his fist.

Nabiki skewered him with a glare. "If you'd let me finish, I'd tell you." 

Frustrated, Ranma shoved a hunk of fish into his mouth and chewed, though he couldn’t taste anything through his worry.  

"While you were gone, we suffered an infestation of rats. They particularly liked invading Akane's room," Nabiki explained. "You can imagine how that might have caused Akane some difficulty." Ranma swallowed painfully.  

Nabiki continued, "It got so bad that we all had to leave and fumigate the house. Dad stayed with your parents while the rest of us made other accommodations. Despite her promise to you, Akane couldn’t stay here any longer. She was wasting away. Even Daddy was on the verge of noticing.” At Ranma’s begrudging nod, she added, “I sent Akane to stay in my friend's isolated cabin up in the woods. No one but me knows she’s up there. She's been training ever since, says she finds it more restful. She’s even regained a bit of color in her cheeks."

Blowing out a breath, Ranma chewed a glob of rice to give himself time to calm down. He put down his chopsticks decisively. "I need to see her. Where is this cabin located?"

"In the middle of the woods. It'll be easier to just show you," Nabiki said. "I'll take you over tomorrow."

"I'm ready to go now," Ranma pushed.

Nabiki snorted. "Well, I'm not. We'll go up tomorrow. If we leave now, we'll end up stuck overnight in some train station. Plus we have to rent a car to get to the cabin itself and nothing is open that late. Even if by some miracle we don't have any problems with our transportation, we'd still get there obscenely early in the morning and end up waking Akane. She isn't sleeping well as is. I'd rather not bother her unless it’s necessary."

Suddenly Kasumi gasped and leaned forward. "Wait, did you find her a cure, Ranma? She wouldn't mind being woken up for that." Nabiki’s face became young and hopeful. Both sisters looked at Ranma trustingly, expecting good news. Their expressions reminded him so much of Akane at that moment that it made his chest ache. 

"Not a cure," he admitted through the gravel in his throat. The words tasted bitter on his tongue. Their hopeful expressions fell to despair. Ranma rushed to add, "But I did find something to hopefully slow it down and give us more time to fix this." 

"Well, at least that's something," Kasumi said with strained optimism. "Why don't you finish your food and then tell us about it."

"I can’t tell you much until I talk to Akane. Some of it’s private," Ranma said, feeling weary and heartsore.

Rubbing her forehead as if trying to forestall a headache, Nabiki looked at him sideways. “Just tell us whatever you can.”

The next day passed in a blur. It took way longer than expected to reach the cabin because of mechanical difficulties with their train. Ranma felt like he was going to crawl out of his skin with impatience. Finally they reached the cabin in the woods around dinnertime. 

As the rental car rolled to a stop, the cabin’s front door opened. Akane looked out with a wary expression. Her cheekbones looked more prominent than he liked, but otherwise she looked good, great, beautiful. Their eyes met and Akane’s expression transformed, curving up into a smile. Heart flipping over, Ranma fell for her all over again.

Akane hadn’t expected visitors. When she saw that her sister had come early and brought Ranma, she couldn’t contain her joy. Ranma jumped out of the car and bounced over. He looked like he was about to sweep her up into a hug, but at the last moment he jerked back awkwardly and cleared his throat. “Hi.” He scratched the back of his head uncertainly.

"Hi. I missed you," Akane blurted out. It wasn't what she'd meant to say, but from his surprised and pleased expression, maybe it was the right thing.

Akane helped them move their stuff into the small cabin and answered Ranma’s spate of questions about how she spent her days, what she ate to keep from poisoning herself with her own cooking, and about the forest and trails around the cabin. She showed him where to find things in the small cabin and what not to touch, like the tarp-covered dirt bike in the shed. After her tour, they had dinner together. Ranma and Nabiki kept up such a steady stream of general pleasantries and inane questions that it took her a while to notice the tense lines of their bodies beneath the artificial smiles. 

Impatient and suspicious, she finally interrupted them to talk about the most important issue. "Did you find a cure for me, Ranma? Up there in the mountains?" She didn't want to exchange pleasantries anymore or pretend she wasn’t dying. For too long, she’d been stuck waiting. Akane felt impatient for answers. 

For a split second Ranma dropped his eyes, his lips tilting down at the corners. Then he pasted a confident smile on his face and leaned forward. "I certainly found something. It was crazy up there. Let me tell you all about it. Not even Nabiki’s heard the full story yet." 

As Ranma began his daring tale of adventure, travelling up to a remote mountain village and tricking people into showing him all their secret techniques, Akane found his words disappearing beneath the ringing in her ears.  _ It wasn’t fair.  _ To keep herself from drowning in despair, she'd piled the fragile vestiges of her hope on the life raft of Ranma’s training trip . He'd been so confident that he'd find her a cure. She’d trusted Ranma to fix her. She’d believed in him. 

But that initial falter in Ranma’s face told her the truth. He'd failed. There was no cure. The walls began to close in on her and it became hard to breathe. Akane’s panic and despair slid over well-worn grooves into anger.  _ It wasn’t fair. How dare Ranma mess this up? It was her life, didn’t he get that? Did he  _ want _ her to die?  _

All too soon, her wave of anger collapsed, replaced by a rising tide of fear. Fear made her feet and fingers go numb as the feeling seeped up across her chest and lapped at her chin, splashing across her stinging nose and threatening to drown her.  _ The demon had won. She really was going to die.  _

On the heels of that thought came bitterness. As Ranma continued his story, with the occasional question from Nabiki, Akane struggled not to lash out at them so they could understand, even if just for a moment, the pain she was going through. Akane wanted to hurt someone.  _ But wouldn’t that make her just as evil as the demon? The demon who was killing her to give birth to his spawn. Soon she’d die giving birth and then her offspring would go on to kill others. Even dying of cancer was better than that. It looked like her mother had been the lucky one after all. _

Standing abruptly, Akane tried to hide the pounding of her heart and heaving of her stomach. Ranma's voice cut off and Nabiki said something sharp. "Excuse me," Akane gasped out. She had to move, to get out and away. She was drowning. If she had to hurt someone, better to turn the cruelty on herself than the people she loved. She had to get out. Akane kept her stride level until she reached the front door, but she couldn't help but let it slam behind her as soon as she saw the open sky. 

Dropping her head, she ran. After several weeks, the forest trails had become familiar enough to run on even with sightless eyes. She skidded on a turn when her house slippers slipped on loose rocks, but she simply kicked them off and continued without them. Alone in the woods, she ran from her problems, her violent impulses, and her death. 

It didn’t work. 

Grunting in rage, Akane stubbornly increased her speed. 

That didn’t work either. 

Changing tactics, Akane focused on the burn of her muscles, the swing of her arms, and the rhythm of her breath. Although the demon had weakened her, she wasn’t weak. Akane could still run. By focusing only on the state of her body, she finally achieved a fragile state of mindlessness. 

Akane came back to awareness when she came out into the clearing next to the hot springs. Drenched with sweat and lungs heaving, she nevertheless felt a twist of pride when she wiped her face and found only sweat and not tears. She didn't want to cry again. She didn't want to give that rat bastard the satisfaction. 

_ Literal rat. Her literal rat bastards.  _

Fragile peace shattered, she gave a wounded cry, unable to choke it back. Turning her trembling lips up into a snarl of rage, Akane paced around the clearing and tried to get her breathing under control. She hated feeling this way.  _ Hated it! _

Akane didn’t want to just give up and die, but what else was there? No one had an answer to that. Taking a hard step onto uneven ground, Akane stumbled in sudden pain. She'd cut her feet up with that little stunt, running without shoes. It hadn’t registered until now, but the sharp pain actually helped to ground her. Each stinging step tugged her out of the ocean of despair and onto solid ground. The almost imagined brush of fur against her legs as her spiritual feline companion paced with her slowly soothed her soul.

Finally stopping, Akane bent over with hands braced on her knees and stared down. Her ragged feet were covered with brown and tan dirt and dark red scratches, a sharp contrast to her clean hands with their neatly trimmed nails and shiny scars. Akane had strong hands. Her fingers were blunt, calloused, and strong. Perhaps not delicate like the feminine ideal, but they were hers and she liked them. They did good things. Despite the abuse they'd suffered over the years, they'd healed. Flexing them on her knees, Akane saw the scar tissue shift and turn orange with reflected light from the setting sun. Those wounds had healed. Her feet would eventually heal too. 

Akane’s mind settled. Maybe she wouldn't heal from this, maybe she would, but she had to go on. To be true to herself, Akane just had to keep going on. She couldn’t control her destination, only her attitude on the journey. Fear would not control her. Anger would not control her. Akane would control herself. 

From the corner of her eye, she saw steam rising from the hot spring and drifting up into the sky. Throwing back her head, she followed the shafts of steam as they rose. For a split second the glory of the setting sun gilded everything—the leaves in the trees, the clouds in the sky, and even the birds in flight—with rose gold light, as if the whole world had stripped down to pure, shining ki just for her. Broken black shadows stretched beneath the golden gleam, imperfection and perfection side by side. It was stunning. Then the light shifted and the effect ended. Brief, but beautiful.  _ Wabi sabi _ .

If Akane could still recognize beauty, hope wasn't lost. She wasn't lost. She would not spend her final moments snivelling in fear. And if she hung on to that goal with only the tips of her neatly trimmed fingertips as she dangled over the abyss, well, it was good that she had such strong hands. Perhaps her life would be brief, but it had been beautiful and strong and good. The world would not soon forget Akane Tendo.

“You hear that! I’m still here!” she screamed defiantly at the distant island of Okinawa and its demon. Birds burst from the surrounding trees and shot into the sky. “You haven’t won yet! I may be gone soon, but right now, I’m still here! I’m still fighting!”  She felt fierce and vibrant. This wouldn't break her. She would not drown in despair. They could steal her lifeforce, but she would not let them take this from her. She would not give away beauty, wonder, and love. She would not give away herself.

Akane was in charge. Ranma wasn't responsible for her life or happiness. He wasn’t to blame for what had gone wrong. She was forgiving him and forgiving herself. This hurt, unfairly dragging her down, but only she could chose to stop reaching for the sky. She may never fly free again like those birds, but she would not cringe facedown in the silt. If she was doomed to die, she would live on her terms. Raising her fists to the sky and going up on tiptoe, she threw back her head and gave a battlecry, pouring all her emotions into creating instead of destroying. In the ringing silence that followed, Akane felt fey and free.

Panting, she lowered her eyes to see a wide-eyed female Ranma. The redhead stood in the dappled shadows beneath the trees. Akane felt no surprise. Of course Ranma had followed her. Of course. He must have splashed through one of the few puddles leftover from the morning’s rain. The curse always found water somehow.

Still feeling fey, Akane boldly met the redhead’s eyes. She would not be embarrassed or ashamed of her shouting. Ranko took a step forward, but then stopped and crossed her arms uneasily, looking down. It might be discomfort at Akane’s show of emotion, guilt, or even annoyance. However, Akane would have to figure it out later. Fixing herself was hard enough right now. She couldn’t fix Ranma too. Akane was patched, but one good hit could still break her.

Turning away, she walked to the hot spring. Easing herself down, she swung her legs over the edge and dipped her feet into the water before she could second guess herself. Although she couldn't suppress the hiss of pain as her wounds hit the hot water, she managed to turn the accompanying whimpers into a single grunt. 

"Stupid tomboy," Ranko whispered achingly as she slid fully clothed into the water without a splash. For a second, the water came up to just under the shorter girl’s breasts. Then the hot water activated the curse and Ranma grew taller, flatter, and broader, until the water only lapped around his narrow hips. 

Biting his lip and avoiding her eyes, Ranma gently cupped one of her feet in his hands and proceeded to carefully and thoroughly wash away the dirt and grime. When his fingers slid across a deep cut, Akane caught her breath and Ranma flinched, but his firm touch didn't falter until both feet were clean. Then he stopped. Akane expected him to finally say something, but Ranma just stared in silence at her small, wounded feet cradled in his palms beneath the water.   

"Ranma?" Akane finally prompted. 

Lifting her feet out of the water, Ranma kissed the top of each one with aching softness. As he lowered them back into the water, she almost resisted, not wanting the water to wash away his kisses. 

"I'm sorry I didn’t find you a cure. I’m sorry I'm useless to you," Ranma rasped in a broken voice, eyes hidden behind his dark hair. 

"Ranma you idiot," Akane rubbed her face, "it's not your job to be useful."

"But-" he raised his head stubbornly, but she reached out and covered his mouth with her fingers. His quick intake of breath tickled her skin.

"No." Akane met his eyes firmly. "This isn't about being useful or useless." He opened his lips beneath her fingers to argue, but she pressed harder, muffling his words. "No."

Ranma jerked back in the water out of reach, forcing her to drop her hand, determined to have his say. "I know you don't need me the way I need you, Akane, that you haven't forgiven me, but I tried my best. I’m so sorry I failed, but I swear I am trying." He threw his hands up helplessly, flinging water droplets up into the air. They flickered like fireflies in the sunset. As they pattered onto the surface of the water, Ranma turned his face away. 

Akane pushing herself off the ledge and into the water with a splash. She lunged forward and grabbed Ranma’s arm. Wrenching him around to face her, she opened her mouth, but for once her mind went blank. He waited for her words with tension singing through his limbs and a stubborn twist to his lips. 

"Ranma, you drive me crazy," Akane finally growled. "Sometimes, you are useless." Ranma flinched and turned away away, tugging sharply at his arm, but Akane tightened her grip until his bones creaked in protest, refusing to let him go. She raised her voice insistently, "And sometimes you're extremely useful. Sometimes you're a complete jerk that I want to strangle and sometimes you're so sweet I can barely keep myself from kissing you, but Ranma, Ranma  _ look _ at me," she demanded with frustration, shaking him, splashing them both with the force until he finally met her eyes with exasperation. "Listen to me, Ranma! You are my best friend. I know you are trying your best. I know you are a good man." 

Ranma took a quick breath as if to speak, but she released his arm and placed her hand at the base of his throat in a plea instead of a demand for silence. This time, he paused. Exhaling hard, he closed his eyes and swallowed. She felt the movement beneath her palm. Opening his eyes, he brought his hands out of the water to alight on her waist. When she met his uncertain look calmly, Ranma’s light grip firmed on the swell of her hips.

Akane felt the mood shifting as she watched her glistening fingers drag down his throat until her palm came to rest above his pounding heart. Her fingers left dark, wet lines across the red fabric of his shirt. Not like a wound, but maybe like a scar, one that had healed with time and attention.

Looking up into Ranma's blue eyes, she said, "I’m forgiving you." Ranma's body jerked beneath her fingers. His fingers tightened convulsively on her hips and his lips parted with an audible gasp of emotion. Akane continued. "I know you, Ranma. Despite your faults, you're still one of the best people I've ever known. If there's one thing that the years of our acquaintance have taught me, it's that no matter what you are or are not doing, or how useful I may or may not find you at any given moment," Akane licked her lips, lifting her dripping hand from the water to join the other in cupping his jaw, her fingers trembling with the strength of her emotions as the molten sun finally slid beneath the horizon, allowing the shadows to unfurl in the periphery like hovering moths,"I still I love you. Ranma, I choose you. No matter what happens, or how many mistakes we both make, I want you to know, right here and now, that I'll always love you."

Ranma's eyes went bright and wet, becoming a new sun in the deepening twilight. Voice deep and deadly serious, he promised, "You have my love, Akane. You have all of me. Forever."

Gently, almost reverently, they came together in the water, Ranma swaying down and Akane curling up until their lips met in a sweet, tender kiss. Sighing into his mouth, Akane slid her hands onto his broad shoulders and arched closer. Ranma gave a subvocal growl of pleasure that rumbled from his chest to hers as he kneaded his fingers along her hips. Warmth and light slid through her body, casting out the dark shadows and cold spaces. 

That warmth sparked and built into a bonfire as the kiss went on and on. Moaning against her lips, Ranma slid his arms around Akane's back and pulled her up tighter against his body. He slanted his mouth over hers, trailing his lips back to her ear and then down her throat before returning to her parted lips. They kissed for endless moments. Akane slid back, nipping his lower lip teasingly when he tried to follow her retreat. She trailed kisses across his cheeks, over his brows and tickling eyelashes, and then pecked him on the tip of the nose twice, just because she could. 

Ranma’s teeth flashed in a happy grin. He licked his abused red lip enticingly before abruptly tipping her backwards. Clutching at him in surprise, Akane shrieked with laughter as water tickled the strands her hair and the back of her head. Ranma’s answering chuckle melted across her tongue like dark chocolate as he swooped down to recapture her lips. 

Sliding her foot back to regain some balance and control, Akane accidentally stumbled over a sharp rock, abrading her already injured sole. Unable to suppress a whimper at the unexpected pain, she flinched back from the kiss. Ranma immediately picked her up in his arms, glancing swiftly around before looking down at her injured feet. He sighed sympathetically. "Are you alright?"

"I stepped on a rock, sorry," Akane explained, dragging her fingers down the dark braid hanging over his shoulder and squeezing water from the dripping ends. She placed it back over his shoulder to hang down his back where it belonged, tracing her fingers down the furrow of his spine. He shivered at her touch. She wanted to keep touching him. To be honest, Akane was more annoyed that they'd stopped kissing then that she'd hurt herself.

"We should go back to the cabin and bandage these," Ranma murmured against the shell of her ear. 

"We could," Akane answered with a catch in her voice as his lips dragged across her sensitive skin, "or we could stay here."

"And do what?" Ranma asked mischievously, nuzzling behind her ear very distractingly. "Nabiki will ask…" he trailed off as his lips began nibbling down her conveniently arched neck. 

"We'll tell her you were showing me some moves," Akane sighed.

Ranma nipped her skin and then soothed it with his tongue. "I'll show you some moves, alright," he whispered wickedly.

Akane giggled and scrunched her neck. "Martial arts moves, you jerk. Like a kata for congruence, one of those math ones that sound pretentious."

At her words, Ranma jerked his head back and gave her wide grin. "You're a genius."

"Of course I am," Akane responded with grumpy confusion as he waded to the edge of the spring and jumped out. "But I didn't mean that the kissing had to stop."

Ranma laughed and pecked her on the lips. "Did you know that the congruence kata can be used to heal scrapes? And since part of my spirit is in your body, I'm pretty sure I can convince that part of me to heal your body instead of my own."

"Have you ever done this before?" she asked skeptically.

Shrugging, Ranma resettled her in his arms. "No, but I saw an old fart do it once. Let's try!"

Unable to resist his enthusiasm, or the throbbing of her feet in the night air, she curled her head down against his shoulder and smiled. "Sure, why not? Go for it, Ranma."

They dripped through Ranma's first three tries without much success. Then he switched her body so her head and heart rested against his left side instead of his right. Eyes going heavy lidded, Akane relaxed against Ranma’s warm body. 

Idly she reached out spiritually, observing the patterns of his ki as they moved. She could see the lines of his energy forming a smooth shell around them. The ties connecting them undulated, rising out from her neck and twining through her personal ki to form an oval field of energy under his direction. However, the closer to a sphere her energy got, the faster it vibrated, until it collapsed back to chaos. Undaunted, Ranma continued to repeat the kata movements over and over. She tried to force her energy into a sphere, but it outright refused and collapsed even quicker. 

As Akane observed, she noticed that the thickest spiritual cord connecting her to Ranma swung back and forth from the anchor points in their cores from acute to obtuse angles as he tugged at it. It didn’t seem very elegant or efficient. A perpendicular joist with flexibility farther out along the cord would work a lot better, in Akane’s opinion. 

Closing her eyes completely, Akane decided to try adjusting a few things. She'd been cutting out ties for over a month. Reinforcing and adjusting one shouldn't be that different. Starting with herself, she waited for the connection to swing from an acute angle wider and wider until she grabbed and braced it at a perfect ninety degrees. A little more work made the angle as permanent as she could get it. She let go and it stayed braced at the perpendicular. It felt good, similar to having a tight knot in a muscle suddenly give way during a massage. Ranma's surprise and pleasure echoed down the connection. 

Turning her focus to Ranma, she pulled herself down the spiritual tie connecting them and waited for his side of the cord to swing up into a right angle. Once it did, she started bracing it the same way. It took longer, since she’d never worked on someone else’s core like this before. It felt different, intimate. She perhaps could have gone faster, but she was enjoying the sensation too much. Slowing his kata down to a crawl to observe her work, Ranma abruptly took over, hardening the angle with almost a audible twang. Akane hid her pout against his shoulder. 

Adjusting her body position slightly, Ranma hummed in satisfaction and swept into the kata again. His outward energy became a sphere. This time, Akane’s energy obeyed his push, billowing out from oval to sphere as well. For a moment, she felt uncomfortably compressed, forced into Ranma’s circular mold. Then Ranma somehow twisted and flipped the spheres. Akane felt a moment of disorientation. Seconds later it disappeared beneath a surge of peace and harmony. 

When she finally blinked open her eyes again, they were standing still in the dusky clearing. Akane flexed her toes. They didn't hurt. Bending her leg, she squinted at the bottom of her food and found only smooth skin. Her skinned knee had healed too.

"You did it," she said in amazement.

Ranma grinned, "We did it together." Dropping a kiss on her forehead, Ranma turned and began walking down the trail back to the cabin. "Sadly, even the little pink bruise I sucked onto your neck has disappeared."

"I don't need a hickey, you brute," she complained. "Also, I can walk."

"That's how you got hurt in the first place. Just let me carry you. It's not that much of a hardship, is it? Letting the man who loves you carry you for a little bit?" Ranma gave her a squeeze.

"Oh fine, but don't think you'll get away with this the next time," Akane grumbled through a blush. Considering how long it had taken him to even say he liked her, Ranma had very quickly gotten comfortable with using the word “ _ love _ .” In fact, she seemed to have more trouble saying it than he did.  _ What if he was just confused about his feeli—NO. No. She couldn’t go down that road. She was going to trust Ranma. She had to. _


	37. The Earring

 

Akane tapped Ranma’s shoulder in a signal to be let down since they’d reached the cabin. In response, Ranma pouted and dropped her feet, letting her slowly slide down his body until her feet rested firmly on the floor. “Tease,” she scolded breathlessly.

Inside, Nabiki sat in the armchair. She glanced Akane over without comment, though her expression said volumes, and then went back to the book she was reading. Since Akane didn't feel up to her sister's prodding, she really appreciated it.

Now that they’d returned, she’d started to feel wobbly. Even her thoughts seemed sluggish. Akane had pushed herself too hard today. Maybe she should get ready for bed, but she didn’t want Ranma to know how weak she’d gotten.

Ranma gestured her into the kitchen and she followed, pride battling with practicality. He handed her a glass of cool water. Dipping his head to her ear with a warm puff of air, Ranma murmured, "I do still need to talk to you about what I found in the mountains."

A shiver raced down Akane's back as the edge of his lip slid along her ear. Akane turned away to hide her breathlessness and gestured to the porch. She took a gulp of water to cool her heated cheeks and left the cup on the counter as she exited the room.

Grabbing his pack, Ranma followed her outside. "You're still barefoot," Ranma grumbled as he sank down by her side.

"So?" she raised a confused eyebrow.

"Your toes are distracting," he griped.

Akane couldn't help her amused snort. "My toes? Really?"

Blushing, Ranma looked away and scratched his head. "They're cute, alright?"

"Well, thanks," Akane grinned.

Rolling his shoulders awkwardly, Ranma turned to his pack and pulled out a small leather pouch. He weighed it in his hand for a moment before shaking his head briskly. "So while I was up in the mountains training, I learned a ki binding technique. The origins are a bit messed up, and it isn't the cure we'd hoped for, but I think it will help slow the demon down. It’s the best I could find to protect you."

Untying the cord, Ranma opened the pouch and shook out three metal circles and a capped needle onto his palm. Looking closer, Akane realized that the metal circles were earrings. Each earring held a small, clear glass bead. Ranma held his breath.

When the silence stretched, Akane impatiently prompted, "What are they?"

"Earrings," Ranma gestured.

Akane shot him a look of annoyance and frustration. "Yes, obviously, but what do they do? How will they help?"

Dropping his hand, Ranma shifted uncomfortably. "They're kind of like birth control. They bind up the energy related to fertility while you wear it. I got some for both of us."

"So I just have to put the earring in and it keeps me from getting pregnant?” Akane’s brow wrinkled. “I mean, I'm glad you took those educational pamphlets I gave you seriously, but I don't see how that helps me out with the demon."

Taking a quick breath, Ranma leaned forward. "They said that you're not supposed to get the piercing if you’re pregnant because it can injure a baby’s lifeforce. I’m hoping it will hurt or even kill some of the demon offspring trying to infiltrate your core. Even if it doesn't, it should hopefully make it harder for them to keep growing."

"It's worth a shot," Akane said, trying not to feel too hopeful in case it failed. "Sure, let's do it."

"Great." Tension drained from Ranma’s shoulders. "I'll show you how to do mine first for my boy- and girl-sides so I can make sure it’s really safe. Then I'll do you." He fiddled with the earrings in his hand, not meeting her eyes.

Suspicions rising, Akane asked, "If you can teach me how to do it, why can't I just do it on myself? I can use the bathroom mirror to see my ear."

Ranma wiped his hands on his thighs.. "The technique can't be cast on yourself. Someone else has to do it, someone of the opposite sex."

"Really?" Sighing, Akane opened her mouth to agree when Ranma added a caveat.

"Well," Ranma fidgeted, "someone of the same sex can do it, like you with my girl-side, but the chance of hurting the demons that way is smaller." Mouth and eyes going tight, he leaned forward. "I’m protecting you the only way I know how."

Inside her core, she felt her feline companion bristle. She wouldn't have noticed in the past, but all the meditation had made her a lot more sensitive to the state of her ki. Akane looked at Ranma's face and then dropped her eyes to the sharp angle of his shoulders. His neck bobbed as he swallowed.

"Ranma," curling her hands into fists, Akane looked into his eyes, "you're lying to me again."

Flinching hard, Ranma dropped the pouch. Turning his face away, he scooped everything up off the ground and cinched the pouch tight. "A-A-Akane, no.” His laughed shrilly. “Nothing I said was a lie. No." He wouldn’t meet her eyes.

"Ranma, can I still not trust you?" Akane felt a catch in her throat and stinging in her eyes. She was so over letting Ranma make her cry. Pain spiked through her head and exhaustion made the world sway for a moment.

_Did she even have the energy to be angry at his betrayal?_ Protective anger swelled loyally in response. _What a silly question, of course she did._ Akane’s knuckles popped with the tightness of her clenched fists. If Ranma didn't have a good answer, she was going to punch him in the face.

Swallowing down a groan, Ranma went pale and grabbed the back of his neck hard in one hand. "You can trust me, you can," he answered desperately. "I didn't lie! I just… left out a few things. I'm sorry." His face looked tortured. "I'm afraid you won't do it if I tell you all of it, but I don't know how else to protect you right now. I need you to do this."

Teeth gritted, she breathed in sharply as the pain in her head and heart swelled. "That's my choice to make, not yours, Ranma." Rage boiled up from her stomach. “Lies of omission are still LIES!”

"I’m sorry." Ranma hunched his shoulders. “I know.”

Akane snapped. “Do you? Do you really? Because you certainly don’t act like it! This is the same thing all over again. I should have known better. I’m starting to wonder if I should just assume that everything you say is a lie. For a while I let myself forget, but to you, I’ve always been the uncute, violent, pitiful one who needs saving, right? In fact, you’re probably only saying you love me because I’m dying. You certainly never said it before that little fact came out.”

“Hey, that’s not fair,” Ranma straitened up with a scowl. “I screwed up and I’m sorry, but I do love you. You know that.”

The bitterness spewing from Akane’s mouth refused to settle down. “What do you know of fair? My whole life is unfair right now! I should’ve known better.” Shame and hurt seared black trails across her thoughts. _How could she have been so stupid as to believe he really loved her?_ Stumbling to her feet, she jerked her head away from his outstretched hand. Akane didn’t even want to look at him right now. “You don’t really care about me. All you care about are yourself, stuffing your face, and martial arts. Raised the way you were, with parents like yours, you probably don’t even know what real love is. You’re not normal. Maybe you’re incapable of love.”

* * *

 

The words stabbed into Ranma’s chest like blades of ice. Ranma’s lungs froze and his mouth filled with frost. He had to look down to make sure he wasn't actually bleeding because it felt like she’d carved out his heart.

In the echoing silence, Akane's face turned pale and stricken. Her fisted hands loosened and began to shake. She opened her mouth to say something more, but he'd had enough. The wound she’d dealt already felt mortal.

Ranma cut his hand through the air sharply and Akane closed her mouth with a click. He jumped to his feet, leaving a metaphorical puddle of blood on the ground. "I screwed up again, okay? I’m sorry. I’m just trying to keep you alive, but I should’ve told you the whole thing. I’m sorry. I'm not perfect, but neither are you. You always lash out like this! Maybe I don't know what love is like for most people. Maybe my parents didn’t love me the way most parents do. Maybe my love isn't normal or I'm not normal. I don’t know. I just know that you're the most important person in my world and that I would do anything to keep you safe. I would die for you. Without you, my world would shatter. I’d act like a fool to earn a single smile from your lips. It’s true that I’ve done everything in my power to keep you alive, but I want you happy too. I need you. More than anyone or anything else in my life, I need you—alive and happy. That's what I call love, even if it’s wrong. I love you and I’m trying. I’m sorry I messed up again. Believe me or not, but don't you dare tell me how I really feel!"

Breathing harshly, Ranma felt a desperate need for physical violence instead of this vicious verbal battlefield. "I don't like you right now, but since I refuse to hit you even when I'm angry, I'm gonna go." Ranma pivoted on his heel and disappeared into the trees, deliberately not looking at Akane's reaction to his parting shot.

* * *

 

As Ranma disappeared into the dark forest, Akane tried to remember what had possessed her to say such things. He’d screwed up, but so had she. Big time. Although Ranma often sucked at talking, his actions always showed the truth of his character.  Breathing hurt. Everything hurt. Any moral superiority she'd initially held had completely crumbled.

Ranma was right. When hurt, scared, or angry, she still lashed out. She'd stopped physically hitting him, but now she'd turned to verbal attacks.

The insecure little girl huddled inside found it hard to believe anyone could love her so fiercely, that someone as amazing as Ranma might actually find her useful. She was such a hypocrite. Rama’s actions lately had been completely consistent with his words. Although Ranma was a master of misdirection when he fought, he had a fierce and straightforward honor.

She never should have said those things about him or his parents. It made her feel sick. When she'd physically hit Ranma in the past, it hadn't been because she was good enough to get through his defenses. In fights, people rarely landed a hit on Ranma and insults usually slid right off. Yet for some reason, Ranma had chosen to place Akane inside his defenses, making himself vulnerable to her attacks because he cared about her. He put up with her bad for the rare good moments. He'd said it himself, “ _he needed her,”_ and, for better or worse, Akane needed him too. She loved the idiot.

Akane felt terrible. She didn’t want to return to those miserable months of anger, silence, and distrust. Not talking to Ranma had almost killed her. Literally, considering how close she’d come to returning to Okinawa by herself. Fighting like this wasn’t fun. She wanted to go back to how they’d been an hour ago.

Yes, he’d tried to hide things from her again. That was wrong. _Wrong wrong WRONG!_ Akane refused to put up with that, even, or perhaps especially, in some misguided attempt to protect her for her own good.

However, Akane was responsible for her own words and actions too. All of the books said that. Sometimes, being an adult sucked. Nevertheless, it meant facing up to her mistakes. Instead of reacting with maturity and teaching Ranma that she could handle whatever tough truth he was concealing and that full honesty was always best, she’d reached for something to say that would hurt him because she felt angry and hurt.

Her anger hadn’t made anything better. In fact, it had just made everything worse. She’d screwed up. They both had.

Akane needed to apologize. She couldn’t justify her bad actions based on what other people did, even Ranma. _Isn’t that what all her self-help books said?_ This was about her personal honor and self-control. Ranma deserved her apology. Somehow, she had to make this right.

Taking a deep breath, Akane gathered up all of her negative feelings and blew them out in a steady stream, filling an imaginary bubble. She repeated the breathing exercise three times until she felt more in control. Then she popped the pretend bubbles with sharp jabs.

Although the woods had become a pot of black ink, her eyes couldn’t help but stubbornly search for signs of Ranma’s dark hair in the shadows. There wasn't enough light. The crescent moon shone but dimly just above the horizon and the light of the stars, while plentiful up here in the mountains, failed to penetrate the forest canopy. _How could she track Ranma when she couldn’t see? Especially when he was just as likely to be bouncing through the treetops as running on the ground?_

Something soft and furry uncurled begrudgingly from where he’d wrapped around her shoulders and throat,  nudged her ki, calling attention to the perpendicular spirit cord stretching out into the night. Akane felt a surge of hope, followed by crippling doubt. She could follow it into the night, but she was still barefoot. He’d call her an idiot and she’d lose her temper again, bringing them back to square one. Besides, Ranma didn’t want to see her right now. She probably shouldn’t bother him yet. _But how long would it take for his temper to calm down?_ Dropping her face into her hands, Akane groaned. She ground her palms against her eyes to press back her pounding headache and incipient tears.

Fur slid across her spirit soothingly and then nudged her awareness wider. Gliding down the cord binding her spirit to Ranma, she felt an echo of his hurt. The confirmation made her feel even worse, but it also gave her an idea of how to compromise. Akane swallowed hard.

Kicking her pride behind the knees, Akane tried to find strength in humility as she walked to the middle of the clearing where no shadows fell. The grass rasped against her bare ankles. A croaking toad went silent at her approach. Exposed, she turned to face the cord linking her to Ranma. Shaking the tension from her wrists, she pushed her pride down again. As ready as she could be, she knelt down with hands on her thighs, dropped her head, and humbly focused on their spiritual tie.

Gathering her feelings of regret, sorrow, and affection, she pressed them into the cord. At first, nothing happened. Firming her chin stubbornly, Akane kept trying. Her knees went numb and a rock dug uncomfortably into her shin. Ignoring it as best she could, she focused harder. She had to make this right.

Just when she was about to give up, she felt a muted throb of surprise travel up the cord. Curiosity overtook Ranma’s pained feelings. Akane tried to reach for more, but fumbled and lost sense of the cord completely. Her frustration surged, making it even harder to regain the connection again. Huffing, she ran her hands through her hair and glared out at the forest.

In the distance, a nightbird burst into flight and momentarily blotted out the stars. Akane blinked. Then she saw him. Ranma wove silently between the trees like gray smoke, moving in and out of sight between the few shafts of light breaking through the branches. Afraid to blink lest she lose him, Akane kept him in sight until he loped into the clearing.

Not even breathing hard, Ranma came to a stop in front of her kneeling figure. Expression opaque, Ranma folded his arms. He didn’t say anything.

Akane had to smack down her annoyance and pride. Calling him a jerk would not help things right now. Ranma didn’t have to make things easy for her. It would be nice if he did, and just as easy to slide back into anger at his lies of omission, but she had to remember her purpose. Akane needed to apologize for what she’d said. Despite her good intentions, the words got stuck in her throat. Her mind spun uselessly with a mishmash of pride, shame, frustration, and the burning desire to find the perfect thing to say, but having no idea what would actually fix this.

Ranma's weight shifted. _Was he impatient? Annoyed? What if he turned and left again before she got her tongue to cooperate?_

Akane sucked in a deep breath. _Actions speak louder than words._ _Actions_! She had to make things right with Ranma. She had to show him.

When she bent forward into a deep and humble bow, Ranma gasped. It gave Akane the push to speak. "I'm so sorry, Ranma.” The scent of crushed grass and dry earth flooded her nose. She squeezed her eyes shut to keep the painful sting from turning into a torrent of tears. "I didn't mean what I said. I just lost my temper and I feel terrible about it. Please forgive me," she finished in a small voice.

Releasing a long sigh, Ranma lifted her up by the shoulders until she met his soft eyes. "Of course I forgive you, Akane. Heaven knows that I certainly provoked you. I shouldn't have tried to lie again. I'm sorry too, really sorry, and I’m going to tell you everything from now on. I promise." Then he tipped his head to the side and sent her a breathtaking smile, "Friends again?"

Reaching out, Akane rose up on her knees and cupped his face in her hands. "More than friends," she asserted firmly, watching his eyes go heavy-lidded with relief and desire as she leaned forward with slow and steady intent.

Eyes sliding closed, Akane kissed Ranma to seal her promise and comfort them both. Sighing shakily, he leaned into the kiss and responded with pure devotion. It sent warmth exploding through her chest. Stroking her fingers down his cheeks, Akane pressed forward, licking into the hot, slick cavern of his mouth and doing her best to prove just how much she needed him too. Ranma responded with a needy growl, yanking her convulsively against his body. Bare fingers slid scaldingly across the small of her back as he surrendered to her kiss and conquered her soul.

Abruptly the clearing flooded with harsh yellow light and the blare of a car horn. Breaking away in shock, their heads swiveled to squint at the disturbance. Ranma twisted defensively so his body blocked Akane’s, but relaxed as Nabiki stomped out, her body backlit by the car headlights.

"In case you've forgotten, I'm still here!" Nabiki gave a sarcastic wave. "I want the whole story of why you're first arguing about Ranma's trip and then suddenly making out on the lawn, but I'm tired. Since you aren't interested in telling me tonight, I'm going to read for a while and then go to sleep."

Raking their intimate position with a snide look, she added, "Unexpected as the role of chaperone is, I have to remind you that you aren't married to my little sister _yet_ , Ranma, and I'm not interested in listening to the two of you fumbling around all night or the inevitable recriminations when you say something stupid in the morning. Or when Akane freaks out and starts smashing things. I don’t have the patience for it. None of us want to get the parents involved in your relationship right now, but don’t push me. You have one hour to _‘talk about things.’_ Keep it above the belt.” Smirking at their mortification, Nabiki gestured over her shoulder. “Then I expect both of you to be back inside the cabin. Otherwise, there will be consequences. If I hear any sounds tonight except talking or snoring, I will throw ice cold water at both of you. Got it?"

Cheeks burning, Akane watched as Nabiki stalked back to the car, turned off the headlights, and disappeared back inside the cabin. “That was awkward,” Akane said.

“I didn’t even notice her until she turned the lights on,” Ranma admitted sheepishly. “Do you want to go in now or talk for a while longer?”

“Talk?” Akane couldn’t help but ask archly.

Chuckling, Ranma bumped shoulders with Akane. “Yes, I meant just talking, you minx, but if you’re willing to tempt Nabiki’s temper, I won’t resist. She’ll probably kill me, but making out with you is worth it.”

Giggling, Akane shook her head. “Unfortunately, I’m too scared of Nabiki and we probably do need to talk.” Sobering, she sighed. “We definitely need to talk.”

Ranma squirmed uncomfortably and folded his legs beneath his body. “What do you want me to say?”

“How about everything you didn’t want to tell me about those earrings? I assume some of it has to do with the messed up origin you mentioned earlier." Akane folded her arms and reminded herself to keep her temper, no matter what she learned. “Be completely honest with me.”

Ranma wiped his hands down his thighs before beginning. "Okay, everything. So the village is isolated pretty far up in the mountains. Through the centuries they've had regular periods of famine. The village leaders up there think men are completely superior to women in every way. I’ve seen dogs treated better than the women up there. When things get hard and food scarce, the men, especially those in charge, get priority over the women in everything."

Grimacing, Akane said, "It sounds like an awful place to live, but where do the earrings come in?"

Distaste twisting his lips, Ranma explained. "They village created the earrings to reduce the number of babies being born only to die during famines. It sounds good at first, but then come the details. As soon as a woman’s ear is pierced in ritual, energy is pulled away from her womb and starts building up within the confines of the spell. It does keep pregnancy down. However, the men eventually learned how to steal that stored energy for themselves. The piercing doesn't have to be voluntary either."

"That's awful! Why would you want to do that to me?" Mind racing, Akane struggled to keep her tone even. "Besides, you can already take my energy with the bond we have. How is this any different?"

Unhappiness carved lines across Ranma’s face. "I wouldn’t purposely take your energy, not if I could help it. The earring is different. It doesn't just take your physical energy. It siphons the potential to make new life and eats away at your lifeforce too. In their village, women have died, though it’s considered sloppy and looked down upon by the community."

"How inconsiderate for the community," Akane said bitterly. Putting a stranglehold on her temper, she took a deep breath and spoke evenly, "Ranma, I still don’t understand how this will help. I mean, I'm not worried about you trying to drain away my lifeforce or anything. I've already got a bunch of parasitic demon babies for that. I know you'd never do that to me. I know you're trying to save me, so explain this to me. Please."

"I appreciate that you trust me that much," Ranma sent her a half smile before his eyes fell back to darkness. "Let me just tell you the last bit and hopefully it’ll start to make sense. The earring keeps you from getting pregnant, but you also should know that as soon as it gets taken off, any stored up, unused fertile energy immediately breaks free, flooding your body. Almost every woman in the village gets pregnant the first time they ha-," Ranma's words stumbled and his cheeks reddened, "do stuff after the earring’s gone. At least, if the stuff happens with the man who pierced their ear. If they sleep with a different man, their fertility actually gets damaged, making it extremely difficult to get pregnant with anyone. The men of the village use the earrings to both control and threaten the women there. Fathers sell their daughters to other men and use the earrings to guarantee their faithfulness, or at least the identity of heirs. Only mothers have any status, but even that isn't much. Most of the women are treated as little more than slaves."  

His words made Akane feel cold.

Ranma swallowed. "Nevertheless, if I pierce your ear, I really do think it will damage the demons growing inside you. I believe it will siphon away the energy they need to grow and give us more time to find you a full cure and save your life. That said, it also means that your future children would have to be mine or else you'd risk never being able to have children at all."

Looking away, Ranma added in a choked voice, "You should also know that if another man took off your earring and forced you, it could destroy your ability to have children forever. During feuds in the village, they said that sometimes men do that on purpose, to punish a family."

"That's sick," Akane said, mind reeling from all of the implications. She asked a question to stall for time. "You made it sound like I could pierce your girl side, though. Wouldn’t that be better? How are earrings from women different?"

Fingering the leather pouch, Ranma explained. "A piercing by a woman isn’t as effective. The ties aren't as greedy, I guess you'd say. Sometimes mothers would try to protect their daughters by piercing them at puberty before a man could, but it was rare and could bring punishment, from what my source told me. Mothers and fathers did sometimes pierce their sons too, to keep them from impregnating a girl unexpectedly. Piercings done by females only make it harder, but not impossible, to get pregnant or impregnate someone else. Energy can still be taken, but not nearly as much. When the earring is removed, the fertility bounces back to normal within a few months, without an initial surge or the chance of damage. None of the other side effects seem to apply."

Ranma thinned his lips and met Akane’s eyes intently. "I honestly don't think that type of piercing would be enough to damage the demon’s offspring, but," taking a deep breath, he clenched his fingers into the fabric of his pants and seemed to force himself to finish, "it is your choice. You don't have to take an earring. Alternatively, we could try with just my female side piercing you first and see if it helps at all.”

When Akane frowned, Ranma added, “Whatever you choose, I'd still like you to pierce me if you’re willing. I'd like the protection. It also gives you the ability to take my energy if you need it instead of waiting for me to send it to you."

Hugging herself tight, Akane asked, “Do I have to decide now?”

“The sooner the better if we want to slow this down, but it is your life and your choice,” Ranma said. “I want to respect that. I’m trying.”

“I need to think about it more, but... I can do yours tonight, if you want,” she offered.

Ranma nodded. “Let’s go over to the porch where the light is stronger. You’ll need to watch my ki while I explain what to do. Most of the men there are dumb as rocks and they can do it, so you should pick it up quickly. We can start with my girl side. That should be easier with the complementary yin energy, too.”

Ducking into the kitchen, Ranma came back out as a busty redhead. She plonked down a bottle of ethanol and a thermos as she sat down across from Akane. “Alright, watch how my ki changes as I reach out for you,” Ranko ordered. “I’m going to yank at your fertility energy, but without the earring to loop the energy through, it’ll just snap back. Ready?” Nodding with more confidence than she felt, Akane turned her attention to the spiritual plane.

They went over the ritual several times, until Akane became bored and impatient. It really was simple. “Alright, I’m ready to try. Let’s do it.”

“Just make sure you pull the energy as tight as it will go. And remember to pierce my tragus and not my earlobe,” Ranko nagged.

Giving Ranko an aggravated look, Akane snapped, “I know.” She hated being nagged. Akane sterilized her fingers, the needle, the earring, and Ranko’s entire left ear, lingering on the earlobe (just to mess with her). “Here we go,” Akane warned. Seconds later, she pushed the needle through Ranko’s tragus, the flap of skin in front of the ear canal. Ranko didn’t even flinch at the piercing, though Akane couldn’t help but grimace in sympathetic pain. Fine red hair tickled across her wrist as she secured the first earring through Ranko’s tragus and closed the metal circle, flicking the clear bead with her fingernail in the process.

Taking the wet needle, Akane pricked her finger and squeezed out a drop of blood. Carefully lifting her finger to Ranko’s ear, Akane submerged the bead in her blood. The blood disappeared, but the bead remained clear, just like Ranma had said.

With the earring primed, Akane cupped her hands in front of Ranko’s lower belly. The redhead’s ki practically jump into Akane’s palms, eager and trusting. Akane compressed the cords into a ball and then pulled them up towards the earring. Midway up Ranko’s throat, they started to resist. Feeling almost guilty, Akane pulled harder, forcing the energy to go through the center of the wire earring and then looping it round and round until the clear bead turned a dark reddish brown. “Is that good?” she asked uncertainly.

“More,” Ranko ordered tightly. Frowning, Akane looped more and more ki around the ring, until a twisted cord of energy stretched taut as a bowstring from Ranko’s navel to ear and vibrated with each breath.

Panting, Akane sat back. “I don’t think I can get it any tighter. I can sense your energy pretty clearly now. How does it feel?”

“A little weird, but it helps that I trust you,” Ranko said, almost too lightly.

Akane frowned, but before she could ask more questions, the redhead picked up the thermos and dumped the warm water over her head. “Let’s do the next one,” Ranma said, flicking dark wet bangs off his face and touching the earring in his left ear briefly.

“Are you sure? Maybe you should rest first.” Akane bit her lip uncertainly. She didn’t want to accidentally hurt Ranma. Secretly, she also wanted a bit of rest for herself. The emotional and physical toll of the day had left her exhausted.

Waving away her words, Ranma pulled out another earring. “I’m fine, go ahead.”

Sterilizing everything again, Akane repeated the procedure. The energy felt different this time, more hungry than friendly, but just as eager to jump into her hands. The strands of ki were also more like fine threads than thick yarn, clinging to her fingers as she forced it round and round the earring and resisting letting go. It took longer to get the cord of male energy to go taut and her fingers were shaking by the end of it. “Done,” Akane finally announced, unable to hide the quaver in her voice.

“Good.” Cracking his neck from side to side, Ranma seemed satisfied. “The earrings feel different, but it won’t distract me in a fight. Thanks. Now, take energy from me.”

“What? No. Why would I do that? I could hurt you.” Akane scowled.

Exasperated, Ranma rolled his eyes. “You’re exhausted and I’ve got energy to spare. You can either take some, freely offered, or I can send you some the old way, but it’d be silly to suffer needlessly. Besides, we should test the earrings. C’mon, Akane.”

Akane wanted to argue more, but she didn’t have the energy even for that anymore. “Oh, fine,” she said crossly. Rubbing her fingertips together, she gathered up a string of his energy and tugged. A pulse of warmth slid into her finger and up her arm to her chest, like a gulp of hot apple cider on a crisp fall day.

“You can take more, go on.” Ranma nudged her foot.

It had felt good, really good. Carefully Akane pulled on the cord again, soaking in Ranma’s energy until she no longer felt wobbly. Stopping, she made sure to carefully release the cord so it didn’t accidentally snap back at Ranma. “Thank you.”

“Anytime,” Ranma said, “and I mean that with all seriousness. You take as much as you need from me. My energy is your energy, alright?”

“Thanks.” Looking away uncomfortably, Akane wondered at the great trust Ranma placed in her. She hoped she proved worthy of it.

“You can do me,” she offered.

“What?!” Ranma choked, coughing and sputtering with red cheeks and wide eyes. His gaze flicked up and down her body.

“My earring, I mean!” Akane clarified in a rush. “You can do my earring.”

They both coughed and looked away.

Ranma cleared his throat. “Are you sure? This isn’t something you can take back and I don’t want you getting mad at me tomorrow. Just because you did mine doesn’t mean you have to do yours. This wasn’t about a guilt trip. I was serious about letting you choose,” Ranma said, clearly trying to do the right thing.

A bittersweet smile curled one side of her lips. “I know. I trust you to do your best for me, Ranma. If the earring can help at all, I might as well try it. I want to live as long as possible. My future fertility is unlikely to be an issue, but if I do survive that long,” heat flooded Akane’s cheeks, “well, there’s no one I’d rather have children with than you.”

“No one?” Ranma asked with a vulnerable tilt to his mouth and brow.

“No one,” Akane affirmed.

Mouth firming, Ranma gave her a nod. “Good. Then let’s do this.”

Positions reversed, Ranma sterilized everything again. It made Akane feel very vulnerable and rather uneasy when Ranma’s fingertip brushed across the hairs of her ear canal. Suppressing the urge to flinch away, she kept still as he pierced her tragus.

“Sorry,” Ranma whispered, slipping the needle out and the earring in in one smooth motion. He pricked his finger and pressed it to the bead. A pressure built in her head. Dropping his hands, Ranma kneaded the air in front of her navel, winding her ki around his fingers. It felt strange. She had to work not to fight against it. Lifting his hands, Ranma gently braided the strands of energy and then pulled them up to the earring. It felt unnerving to have someone else twisting her ki over, around, and through the earring in her tragus. The spiritual cord dangled between her breasts with just a bit of slack. Ranma pulled out one of the trailing ends from the back of the earring and knotted it around the cord at her neck. He sat back. “Done.”

Akane wrinkled her brow. “I don’t think it’s tight enough. That’s not how you had me do it.”

“No, it’s good. I want it this way so I can’t accidentally take too much energy and hurt you,” Ranma waved away her objection. “This will still starve the demons and my cat side can access it too.”

Akane scowled. “Then why did you force me to make yours so tight? I could kill you if I took too much energy!”

Hopping to his feet, Ranma gathered up the supplies. “Better me than you.”

“Ranma… you shouldn’t say things like that.” Akane rubbed her hands down her thighs and shifted her weight.

“Why?” Brow crinkled, he looked genuinely lost. “I thought it was pretty clear considering the way I tied you to me in the first place, but your life is my priority. I love you. No one is more important, not even me. I mean, I don’t wanna die, but I’d rather keep you alive than live without you.” Holding out his hand, he tipped his head to the side and smiled, as if he hadn’t just offered to die for her, as if he wasn’t the most wonderful and crazy man in the entire world.

Taking his hand, Akane surged to her feet and pulled Ranma’s head down into a deep kiss. She loved this infuriating man so much. Lips slanting across his passionately, she did her best to show him how much he meant to her.

Reaching down, Ranma lifted Akane up his body. She wound her legs around his waist and licked into his hungry mouth. A pulse of pleasure vibrated down the spiritual cords linking their souls, making every touch even more intense. Akane moaned. Keeping her in place with one hand high on her thigh, Ranma buried his other hand in Akane’s hair and deepened his kiss with an animalistic growl.

Ice cold water unexpectedly splashed across her body. Akane found herself gasping in shock against Ranko’s smaller but equally plush lips. Jerking back, she saw Ranko’s expression turn stricken and ashamed. Her hold on Akane’s legs loosened and she looked down and away. It made Akane sad. Ranma’s eyes should never look so wounded, male or female.

As Akane unwound her legs and slid to the ground, she deliberately dropped a kiss on Ranko’s vulnerable-looking mouth. _No matter the form, Ranma was Ranma and Akane loved him._ Red lashes blinking rapidly in surprise, Ranko’s blue eyes came back up and crinkled in shy pleasure.

“Excuse me,” Nabiki snapped, “but I did not sign up for the growls and moaning! I get enough of that at college! I’m trying to sleep. Inside, the both of you, and you can just sleep like that, Ranko.”

Separating reluctantly, they went inside, changed into dry pajamas, and slid into separate futons in the bedroom they shared with Nabiki. For the first time in weeks, Akane felt a sense of happiness. In the dark, Ranko nudged Akane with her toes. Akane smiled and nudged back. Lulled by the soft sounds of Ranko and her sister breathing, Akane dropped easily into a deep and dreamless sleep.

 


	38. Fog & Old Friends

 

Akane woke with the sun, feeling flushed with energy. She hadn’t felt this good in weeks. Her 19th birthday was coming up in just a few weeks. Maybe this was a good omen. 

Looking over, she saw Nabiki hiding her face beneath a blanket. Ranko, who’d thrown an ankle over Akane’s during the night, lay on her back snoring like a trucker. Strands of red hair fluttered up and down with each noisy breath. Smiling fondly, Akane slid her foot free and tiptoed out. 

At the door she laced up her running shoes. Closing the door as silently as possible, Akane took off. Unsure if she’d feel this good again any time soon, she eschewed her usual gentle trail, instead heading uphill on a path that overlooked the cabin and valley below. Her calves burned as she pounded up the trail. Even with the extra energy, she felt herself start to tire sooner than she’d like. Sweat plastered Akane’s shirt to her back, beneath her arms, and under her breasts. When she reached the lightning-split tree at the top of the trail, she took a second to unstick the fabric from her skin, flapping it to encourage a bit of drying and send a few gusts of cool air onto her damp skin before turning to go back. Despite the temptation to keep running until she dropped, to just revel in the feeling of being alive, she didn’t want the embarrassment of running out of energy miles away from the cabin. Instead of having hours to slowly drag herself home, she’d get tracked down by a worried and disapproving Ranma and have to endure a scolding. 

As Akane made her way back down the trail with the occasional spray of rocks and dirt when she stepped too hard on loose ground, she looked out on the vista spread out below and noticed something curious. The small airport in the valley below had an unusual visitor. A modern-looking cargo plane with black, purple, and gold striping had taken over the airstrip. Usually she only saw smaller, vintage planes. The cargo plane looked very out of place, almost menacing. She didn’t like it.

Shaking it off, Akane focused on placing her feet carefully as she descended the rocky trail. The last thing she needed was a rolled ankle. At the next opening in the leafy trees, she looked downslope for the cabin, hoping to see Ranma practicing kata outside. Even in the early days when she wanted to bash his face in for being a jerk, she’d always appreciated the way his body moved through kata. Unfortunately a dark and gloomy fog bank covered the clearing, hiding the cabin from view. Sighing, she continued her run. She’d see Ranma soon enough. 

Sweat dripped down her forehead and stung her eyes as the bright sun rose higher in the sky, warming the clear mountain air. Wiping her face on her shoulder, she realized that she hadn’t seen anymore fog as she descended. Akane slowed. In fact, not only was it too warm for fog this morning, but the cloud around the cabin had looked more lavender than white. Akane stumbled to a stop in the middle of the trail as her breathing went erratic. 

_ A purple cloud… what if the rat demon’s men had found her cabin? _

Adrenalin surging, Akane took off like a lit rocket, abandoning the trail for the direct route down the side of the mountain. Skidding sideways in a cloud of debris, she reached flatter ground and bounced off a tree hard. Akane stumbled, but ignored the pain radiating from her shoulder as she raced for the cabin. 

_ Maybe they’d had a cooking accident and burned something. The smoke could be from that. It could! _

Bursting into the clearing, she found the cabin surrounded by a faint purple haze that finished dissipating even as she neared. Jagged shards filled the broken windows and the open door hung open crookedly on a single hinge. The rental car in the driveway sat lopsided with three slashed tires. Someone had also busted in the windows and headlights, leaving a dent the size of a man’s foot in the driverside door. 

In the distance, an engine growled. Akane pushed her body hard, racing around the side of the cabin. A truck fishtailed around the bend of the small road leading to the valley in a cloud of dust and disappeared. They had to be heading for the airstrip, the one with the sinister cargo plane.

Heart galloping in her chest, Akane pivoted and ran back into the cabin. “Ranma! Nabiki!” A metal cannister lay on its side in the livingroom, surrounded by broken glass from the front window. “Ranma! Nabiki!” Her desperate search of the cabin proved futile. They were gone. The demon’s men had come looking for Akane and taken them. 

Snatching up an empty mug, Akane threw it against the wall. It shattered in a cloud of white shards, joining the jagged pile of clear glass scattered across the floor. Unfortunately, it didn’t help.

Suppressing a scream, Akane closed her eyes, fisted her hands in her hair, and throttled back on her panic and rage. She had to focus. She had to save Ranma and Nabiki.

Eyes popping open, she ran to the garage and ripped open the door. Dust motes sparkled in the beam of light from the open door, highlighting the tarp-covered mound in the center. Panting, Akane heaved the tarp off the motorbike and flung it aside. The gas gauge read empty. Snarling, she cast her eyes around the small room, landing on a shelf full of bottles, boxes, and cans. On the far end she found the gasoline. The container barely sloshed as she snatched it up and frantically emptied it into the dirt bike’s tank, splashing gasoline all over the floor and wheel in her haste. Akane didn’t care about the mess. She just needed the bike to start. Tossing the empty can to the side, she screwed the cap back on the tank and wheeled the bike outside. 

Throwing her leg over the motorbike, Akane kickstarted the engine. It came to life with a growl that built into a roar that rattled her teeth. Slamming on the accelerator, the bike jolted forward and she shot off down the road. Akane hugged her body low to the seat and handlebars and maxed out the engine as she zipped down the mountain. The trees to either side became a solid blur of green as she focused on the keeping the bike centered on the road. If she crashed at this speed, she wouldn’t be getting up again, but Akane couldn’t think about that. Slowing down meant losing Ranma and Nabiki. 

However, no matter how fast she went, the truck’s taillights didn’t reappear. It had too much of a lead.  _ Had she lost before she’d even left the cabin?  _ Akane wasn’t going to catch the kidnappers, not before they reached the airfield in the valley and their plane.

At least, not if she stayed on the road.

Clenching her jaw stubbornly, Akane wrenched the handlebars sideways, sending the motorbike careening down the steep forested slope. She learned almost immediately that running down a mountainside was much easier than rolling down one. Tree limbs scratched at her limbs and ripped out her hair, slapping her across the face in punishment for her arrogance. Shadows made it hard to see obstacles. Akane held on grimly and did her best not to smash into a tree, flip the bike, or gouge out an eye. She prayed frantically to every kami she could think of that she’d survive this. A particularly hard jolt made her bite her tongue, flooding her dry mouth with copper. 

Momentarily distracted by pain, she didn’t see the ledge up ahead until it was too late to turn the bike. Akane screamed as she flew out into the open air. Then terror clamped down on her throat, rendering her mute. Time slowed. She hung suspended in the clear blue sky next to a trio of startled birds. Sunlight glinted off the iridescent patches on their wings and warmed her bloodless cheeks. She might stay like this forever, memorizing the strands of each individual feather as she floated with the clouds... but gravity cared not a whit for her plans. 

Akane plummeted. The air rushed past her eardrums like river rapids, rendering her deaf to the frightened calls of the birds as they flapped away. She fully expected to die. 

Her motorbike landed in a pit of spongy needles and decaying leaves, plunging deep until it hit solid ground with a bone-rattling jolt. The impact flung Akane’s body sideways. Only the detritus packed around her legs kept her from flying headfirst into a tree stump. She barely managed to hang onto the bike with one elbow and a knee as the spinning wheels sent old foliage and muck spraying into the air. Skidding forward, the bike began tipping. Akane threw herself to the opposite side, righting the bike just in time for the tires to find their grip and heave up out of the pit and into open ground. It jolted through a clearing and over a small prickle bush as Akane scrambled to center herself on the seat. Right before the bike slammed into a rock, she regained control, wrenching the handlebars left to go around and then back to center. Dodging one more tree, she abruptly found herself on the open road leading into the valley.

Letting out a whoop, Akane fistpumped the air.  _ I survived!  _ Then she bent down over the handlebars and zoomed towards the airstrip. Coming around a curve, she finally saw the truck up ahead. It entered the gates of the air field, pulled up next to the cargo plane on the far side, and parked. A faded logo on the side read, “Saito’s Sweet Melons.”

As Akane zipped through the gate after it, the motorbike’s engine began going  _ put-put-put _ in warning. “No, not now. We’re almost there!” she cried. “Come on!” Insensitive to her pleas, the engine gave one last sputter and died. The bike coasted forward slower and slower. Cursing, Akane jumped off, abandoning the dirt bike to skid onto its side and spin to a stop. 

Sprinting around a hanger, Akane turned the corner and slammed into a broad chest. She bounced off the man and hit the ground hard, knocking the breath from her already abused body.

“Oh, I’m so sorry! Are you alright, Miss?” a familiar voice asked. She didn’t even have the energy to feel surprised.

Tossing the hair out of her face, Akane pushed herself back to her feet. She had to keep going. There wasn’t any other choice.

“Akane?” Ryoga asked in surprise and delight. “What are you doing in Sapporo? Or is this Kyoto? It doesn’t look like Tokyo.” He tilted his head to the side. “Is everything alright?” 

Akane had no breath to reply. Just standing was taking all her energy. 

Abruptly the lost boy shrank back and hung his head. “Nevermind, it’s none of my business. Sorry, I’m sure you don’t want to talk to me. I’ll just get out of your way.” He turned to go.

“Stop,” Akane gasped, hands on her knees. She didn’t have time to care about their last argument right now. She was going to forgive him anyways, or at least try to. “Ranma and Nabiki... kidnapped. Cargo plane. Help!” 

Swinging back around, Ryoga shed his shame for alarm. “What? Where?” 

“Truck,” Akane pointed, breaking into a clumsy jog.

“Right.” Ryoga growled and followed. “You can count on me, Akane. I won’t let you down again. Not like before.” Dark emotion pooled around Ryoga as he ran, coalescing in his hands and shooting out from his palms in a massive energy blast as he screamed, “Shishi Hōkōdan!” 

The blast exploded on the ground next to the plane, rocking the wings and making the whirling engines sputter, but not go out. The melon truck wasn’t so lucky. It flipped over onto its side with a  _ bang _ ! Akane stumbled in fear. What if he’d just hurt Nabiki and Ranma?  _ Stupid, thoughtless Ryoga!  _

Men in black and purple uniforms came swarming out like bees from a kicked-over hive. At the back, Akane saw two soldiers pop up and race over to the ramp leading into the cargo plane. Each man carried a limp female over one shoulder. The gleam of red hair disappearing into the shadows of the plane sent a wash of relief through Akane. An anxious minute of waiting later, the soldiers came running back out empty-handed and joined the fight.

Ryoga burst into the soldiers like a bowling ball into pins, easily holding his own against the crowd. Crates of sweet melons stacked on the runway became weapons in Ryoga’s hands. They flew through the air, exploding on the ground and sending slippery orange and yellow flesh everywhere. Those melons that didn’t break into pieces scattered like marbles, tripping the charging soldiers and sending them crashing into each other and slipping into the sticky mess all over the runway. Smiling grimly, Akane avoided the commotion and snuck towards the open hatch of the plane. With Ryoga’s help, she might just pull this rescue off after all.

Creeping forward, she hurried up the ramp of the cargo plane. The inside was crowded with boxes and equipment. Metal benches lined the curved walls on both sides, but all of soldiers were outside fighting Ryoga. The cockpit had a curtain pulled mostly shut to separate it from the main cabin. She could see the pilot’s feet and one arm around the edges of the curtain as he prepared for takeoff. Even though the engines were loud, she’d still have to take care to be quiet.

Coming around a crate, she found Ranko and Nabiki. The soldiers had flung their limp bodies carelessly onto one of the benches, leaving their limbs twisted at uncomfortable looking angles. They’d handcuffed the two women together. The center of the cuffs threaded through a ring secured about a foot above the bench, wrenching their arms above their unconscious bodies. Unfortunately, Akane didn’t see keys anywhere and hadn’t paid attention to the faces of the soldiers that had brought them in here. Glancing out into the chaos of men covered in slimy melon, she wasn’t confident she could find them even if she did remember their faces.

At least no one looked hurt, though Nabiki’s breathing sounded labored and raspy. Akane quickly straightened her sister’s body to try and ease her breathing and then adjusted Ranko, smoothing clumps of red hair off her face and tucking them behind her ears. Akane did a quick search of the cabin for spare keys, but didn’t turn up anything. She was running out of time. The soldiers could return at any moment. Returning to the cuffs, she tried to pry them off first Nabiki’s wrist and then Ranko’s, but they wouldn’t budge and she feared that the metal would start to gouge the skin if she kept pulling. Akane planted her feet, grabbed the ring threaded through the wall, and heaved backwards. The metal in the wall shifted and deformed. A crack formed in the metal, giving her hope, but it wasn’t big enough. “Wake... up,” Akane panted as she pulled and twisted to no avail. She couldn’t make the crack wide enough to slip the ring through. She wasn’t strong enough.

Turning to Ranko, Akane placed her mouth against the redhead’s ear. “Please. Open your eyes, Ranma. I don’t want to be useless here, but I need your help to break this chain.” The skin against her lips tingled, but the body beneath her hands stayed lax.  

Akane pushed herself up and stubbornly searched the cargo hold again for the keys or bolt-cutters, something,  _ anything _ to break through the handcuffs or the ring in the wall. 

Outside, a huge crash shook the plane. Men screamed. Startled, Akane looked out and saw water flooding across the tarmac to the foot of the ramp, sending melons skittering around like pool balls.

“He’s toppled the water tank! We’ve got to get out of here and away from this maniac!” With each word, the voice came closer. A soldier appeared, walking backward up the ramp with water dripping from his clothes and plastering his hair to his skull.

Ducking behind a crate, Akane swore silently and wiggled into the gap between the bottom of the bench and a bulky box. Hopefully they would hide her. Getting caught right now would definitely make everything worse. 

“We have the chosen one for the prophet. This fight is pointless. Everybody, retreat!” the dripping soldier shouted, swinging his arm in a gathering motion. Soldiers raced up the ramp into the cargo hold, limping and shellshocked. The last few stragglers dragged their unconscious teammates.

“How can just one man do so much damage?” a bewildered voice asked. “He’s not even part of the Prophet’s crazy cat guard and they’re the best fighters most of us have ever seen.”

A soldier plopped down onto the bench at an angle to Akane’s hiding place, his head craned sideways to look fearfully down the ramp. “Where’d he go? I can’t see him. Can you see him?”

“I don’t care, let’s just get out of here before he comes back!” cried another soldier, hitting a lever on the wall.  _ Clang _ ! The hatch closed, making Akane’s hiding spot even more shadowed. The plane began to bounce along the runway, sending uncomfortable vibrations through the metal pressing against her limbs. As the plane took off, Akane felt her ears pop painfully. 

Once safe in the air, the soldiers perked up. In the enclosed space, the combined scents of blood, moist fabric, sweet melon, and male sweat became almost unbearably foul. Akane swallowed hard and tried to breathe shallowly. 

As the minutes ticked past, fear of discovery faded beneath thoughts of discomfort and boredom. Across the cabin, she noticed the gleam of eyes under the opposite bench. Heart jolting, she jumped, knocking her head hard against the metal. *Ouch* she mouthed silently. Luckily none of the soldiers seemed to notice.

Looking back, she realized that the eyes, too small to be human, weren’t focused on her. Squinting in the dim light, she managed to make out a pattern of yellow splotches on black. The head moved and, for a second, the light fell on a snout. _P-chan!_

_ No… Ryoga. _

Despite her decision to forgive him, Akane felt an ugly flash of shame, anger, and resentment. Just as well that they couldn’t speak right now without being discovered. With no fight to distract her, she might say something she would regret. Earlier she’d been too caught up in the chase to really think about their last meeting. It took most of the flight for her to push down the desire to pick the pig up and punt him out the hatch at 30,000 feet. Slowly she managed to push down her unhappiness and focus on Ryoga’s letter, his attempt to help, her need for an ally to rescue Ranma and Nabiki, and the peace she’d felt when deciding to do her best to forgive him anyways. By the time the plane landed, Akane once more felt mature about the Ryoga situation. 

The plane taxied to a stop and the back hatch opened, flooding the cargo bay with harsh yellow light. Akane’s stomach dropped at the sight of the familiar jungle canopy outside. She’d had too many nightmares about Iriomote Island not to recognize it instantly. Inside her soul, she could feel her passengers stirring: an awful mix of feline terror and rodent triumph. She had to fight against a surge of despair. 

By sneaking on this plane, she may have just hastened her death. However, Akane couldn’t trade her life for Ranma’s and Nabiki’s. She would save them or die trying. Literally, in this case. 

Noticing the parallel to Ranma, she couldn’t help but smile wryly. Being useful was also an integral part of her identity. She couldn’t just sit by and do nothing. Neither of them could.

“This one’s not doing too well,” a soldier said over the idling of the plane’s engines, breaking Akane from her thoughts. The box in front of her bench not only hid her, but also blocked her view of Nabiki and Ranma. 

“Aw man, she’s having a bad reaction to the gas,” another soldier griped. “There’s not much antidote left in the kit, but I’ll give her what we have and see if it helps. Despite her sharp features, she’s got a hot bod beneath those tight little pjs. It’d be a waste if she died now.” 

“At least she’s not the Prophet’s chosen one. The redhead still looks healthy,” said a third soldier. “He’d kill us if we brought that one back dead.”

Stomach clenching, Akane watched as soldiers carried Ranma and Nabiki down the ramp on stretchers. Nabiki’s breathing looked labored and her face splotchy, with a blue tinge to her lips. Akane wanted to jump out and save them, but there were too many men for her to take on by herself and a quick glance showed that P-cha— _ Ryoga  _ had disappeared.

“You sure the redhead’s the One? The amulet barely lit up. The Prophet said it would shine like a tv screen for anyone touched by his power,” questioned the soldier carrying the bottom of Ranma’s stretcher.

“Why not a star or sun or at least a fire?” asked his partner. “Something poetic?”

“Shut up. Who cares?” scolded the soldier who seemed in charge. “Maybe he meant a crappy tv screen so idiots like you would understand. The brunette didn’t even make it flicker and the redhead did. When I pulled it out on the plane earlier, it looked even brighter. We found the woman where the Prophet said she’d be. That’s good enough for me and for you. Do you want to fly back to the airfield with that maniac to double-check?” At their frantic headshakes, he nodded. “Load up the trucks and let’s get out of here.”

“Yes, Sir,” the men chorused. 

Two rickety farm trucks with delusions of military life backed up to the base of the ramp. The soldiers loaded them up with the boxes from the cargo hold. Akane held her breath as a man picked up the box next to her hiding place without a stutter and trotted out towards the trucks. She’d gotten lucky, but it wouldn’t take much more for her to be discovered. Luckily they seemed done with unloading. 

The pilot came out, had a quick word with the captain, and then disappeared into the small building next to the airstrip. The soldiers loaded the stretchers into the back of one of the trucks. The soldiers then distributed themselves wherever they could, barely fitting everyone on both trucks. The engines sputtered to life, releasing a belch of black smoke from their tailpipes.

Akane’s mind spun uselessly. She needed to do something to save Ranma and Nabiki, but what? She couldn’t afford to be stupid about this. She was their only hope. Getting caught would just make things worse.

In her panic, Akane had forgotten Ryoga. The little black pig raced down the plane’s ramp and leapt, soaring through the air to land next to the truck holding Nabiki and Ranma. He skidded forward, reached up with his strong jaws and clamped down. Head jerking to the side, he ripped something loose on the undercarriage of the truck. 

Damage done, he turned and trotted for the other truck. It started moving. He bounded forward and lunged, grabbing onto the other truck. However, before he could get a good grip with his teeth, the truck went over a series of bumps. Contorting his body, Ryoga tried to hang on, but the truck gained speed and turned. The momentum flung his little black body loose. The small pig hit the spinning wheel of the truck hard and got pulled beneath it. The truck jolted over his body without pause and sped off down a dirt track into the jungle. 

Akane cried out in denial. Scrambling out of her hiding place, she ran down the ramp. Her frantic search finally found the pig lying insensate in the grass of the field. Ryoga was breathing, but his leg splayed out at an unnatural angle and seemed shorter than it should. Scooping him up in  her arms, Akane raced into the nearby jungle, not stopping until she was sure they were far enough away not to be seen or heard. 

Gently feeling along the pig’s leg, she winced. The hip felt out of joint and the flesh around it was rapidly swelling. She’d seen something similar a few times at Dr. Tofu’s. Despite his practice focusing on humans, people occasionally brought in injured pets and begged for his help. Dr. Tofu would do what he could and then send them along to a veterinarian for a follow-up. 

A dislocated hip really should be seen by a specialist, but that wasn’t an option in the middle of a jungle ruled by an evil prophet who worshipped a demon rat. Blowing out a big breath, Akane decided to do what she could before he woke up. This sort of thing hurt a LOT. Better to be unconscious for that much pain. 

Placing one hand firmly on the pig’s hip, Akane took his leg and steadily rotated it back into place. The joint popped back in with a gruesome snap. Poor P-cha— _ Ryoga _ whimpered, but thankfully didn’t wake up. He’d still need to get his hip looked at by a professional, but at least this would make him a little more mobile before the swelling made popping it back in almost impossible. 

Akane carefully lifted the black pig into the cradle of her arms, supporting his legs against her forearm, and turned to go back. She could take on one pilot by herself, no problem. In the process, she’d ask him what they had planned for Ranma and Nabiki and get some insight on possible weaknesses. She desperately needed some sort of advantage right now. 

As she ducked beneath a large frond, Ryoga snorted awake in her arms. He snuggled his snout into her cleavage with a happy sigh and then froze at her sharp intake of breath. Akane twitched. 

Squealing an apology, the pig sprang from her arms, only to stagger and drop onto his rump when his leg folded. Pain and confusion swept through his eyes. A whine escaped his snout. 

Reminding herself that Ryoga was hurt and had stopped as soon as she’d stiffened up, Akane tried to focus on how pitiful he looked. She had to control her temper. She needed him. “You dislocated your leg. I did my best to put in back into place, but you’re probably going to need a doctor... or a vet. You know what I mean. Anyways, I’m going to go beat up that pilot. We’ll find you some hot water after that and then go rescue Ranma and Nabiki.” She turned to leave, but Ryoga heaved himself up onto three legs and limped after her with a series of piggy snorts. She’d always had a weakness for pig sounds.

Throwing her head back in a gusty sigh, Akane gave in. “Fine.” Sweeping Ryoga up, she plopped him over her shoulder, “we’ll beat him up together.”

As she broke through the trees, she saw the plane moving away down the runway. “No!” she cried. It built up speed and then lifted into the air. “ _ Burnt rice _ ! There goes our source of information.” Casting her eyes around, she broke into a jog. “Hopefully there’s at least something helpful in that building.”

The pilot hadn’t bothered to lock the door of the little building, so it opened easily at the turn of the knob. Akane gave a disgruntled frown. Secretly she’d been looking forward to breaking it down. Right now, she  _ really _ wanted to break something. Ryoga was off-limits. 

After setting Ryoga down, she searched around. The open shelves held bottled water, cans of food, batteries, and a few pots, pans, cups, and plates. Akane dumped half a bottle of water into a pot and set it on the battery-powered camp stove to boil. She gulped down the rest of the bottle, tossed it aside, and then opened a second. Sipping more slowly, she followed Ryoga’s piggy snorts to a pile of spare clothing and a large first aid kit on the other side of the room. Akane pulled out everything she thought might possibly help Nabiki and repackaged it into a smaller bag. She didn’t have the stamina to carry the entire kit around anymore. 

When she checked the water on the stove, she saw small bubbles rising around the sides of the pot. She considered waiting for a roiling boil, but mature Akane won the argument in her head. Picking up the pan, she turned and splashed the pig.

Naked Ryoga appeared with a yelp. “Hot!” 

_ What a baby. _ Even Mature Akane agreed with that. The lost boy fidgeted in place, searching her face for something and biting his lip. Akane gave him a raised brow and deliberately turned to look up at the ceiling.

From the corner of her eye, she saw Ryoga look down and finally remember that he was naked. “Sorry!” he squeaked, scooping up the clothes and disappearing out the door. 

A minute later he returned in a pair of black pants and a purple tunic. Somehow he’d also found his yellow leg ties and old shoes. “Sorry,” Ryoga repeated, face red and head hanging low. He limped over and dropped heavily onto a seat at the table. Too heavily for just shame and depression.

Worried, Akane frowned. “It’s okay,” she finally said with simplicity. She wanted to be mature about this. Turning, she pushed the first aid kit closer to Ryoga. Gesturing at his leg, she asked, “Will you be okay? I thought you were built like a tank.” 

Ryoga scratched the back of his head. “I got a little hurt wrestling with Akari’s sumo pigs recently. It’s just bad luck that the truck hit me in the same place and made the leg pop out of joint again. You did a good job pushing it back in so quickly. Thanks. The longer you wait, the harder it is.” Opening the first aid kit, he looked up at her and blushed. “Um, do you mind turning around while I check my hip?” He rushed to add, “Just for a minute. This’ll only slow me down a little. Don’t worry. Here, take some things for you too. You’re covered in scratches. Are  _ you  _ okay?” His brow creased with concern. 

“I’m fine, don’t worry. Take as much time as you need.” Turning, she ducked out of the hut and began sticking bandaids on the worst of her cuts. She didn’t want to rush him, but at the same time, Ranma and Nabiki were getting farther and farther away every minute. As a girl, she’d agreed automatically to be polite without thinking it through. Manners could be so frustrating.

Thankfully, Ryoga appeared only a couple of minutes later. Meeting her eyes, his walk smoothed out as he exited the door. “Let’s go. I’m pretty sure I did some damage with my teeth. At least one of the trucks has to have broken down by now.” 

Akane had a bad feeling that Ryoga was underplaying his injury, but she couldn’t call him on it because she still needed him to help rescue Ranma and Nabiki. Maybe it was selfish, but she didn’t want to have to do this on her own. Bad things had happened the last time she came to Iriomote island.

As Ryoga came abreast of her, he gestured with his chin, “Nice earring. Is that new?”

“Yeah,” Akane wasn’t interested in explaining more.

The two set off at a steady jog down the dirt track after their friends. Ryoga’s face looked tight and pale, but he kept up with her pace. Akane wanted to run, but perhaps luckily for Ryoga, she didn’t have the stamina anymore. This morning’s exertions had already taxed her. For a second she thought longingly of stealing a little energy from the tie around her fingertip linking her to Ranko, but she refrained. Just because she could, didn’t mean she should. Interestingly, the tie to Ranma’s male side had become as diaphanous as spider’s silk. She thought she could still take energy from it, but it would move at a trickle instead of a torrent.

After about an hour, Ryoga gestured sharply to stop. When Akane obeyed, she heard a male voice cursing vociferously and creatively up ahead. Another voice laughed and then cut off abruptly as the voice of the squad leader drifted back through the trees.

“Try and figure it out. I’m leaving her here with you to make room for more men. If you fix the truck, bring her with you. If she dies of a little gas, the prophet wouldn’t have wanted a weakling like her anyways. Let the jungle have her body and go the rest of the way on foot. One way or another, I want you back by sundown. You know the consequences if you aren’t.” The response was too hard to understand as Ryoga and Akane crept closer. Then the leader’s voice called, “I don’t care, just remember, if anyone asks, we were attacked by at least twenty men at the airport, alright?”

Any reply was lost beneath the sound of the truck’s engine coughing back to life. Akane and Ryoga broke into a run, trying to stay on the edges of the jungle beneath the shadows of the large fronds bristling overhead. Instead of bursting out to find the soldiers, they found themselves at the top of a steep cliff overlooking the men down below clustered around the broken-down truck. There wasn’t a way down. The two were forced to follow the road for several frustrating minutes as it slanted down before coming back around in a hairpin turn. 

Finally they came around a gigantic tree and saw the back of a truck parked crookedly at the bottom of the slope. Akane looked in vain for the second vehicle, but it was already long gone. No one noticed them as they approached. 

Several men clustered around the open hood of the truck, trying to diagnose the problem. “What about the gas, could it be out of gas?” asked a soldier with a big nose. His left eye was swollen shut and strings of melon seeds tangled in his hair.

“No, we already checked that,” snapped the man leaning over the engine.

“The tires aren’t flat.” the first man said helpfully.

The mechanic leaned back to shoot him a glare. “A flat tire wouldn’t make the truck stop working, genius.”

Mr. black eye shrugged. “I’m not a genius. That’s just all I know about fixing cars: tires and fluids.”

“Then go be useful somewhere else! Try to keep the girl alive or eat a coconut or something. If we don’t get to the compound soon, we’re going to get in trouble.”

“But coconuts are rare around here. It’s because we’re subtropical, not tropical. I learned that on tv,” he confided proudly.

“I don’t care!” growled the cranky mechanic. 

Akane and Ryoga didn’t care either. Giving each other a nod, they charged the rest of the way down the dirt road, screaming savage battle cries. As they reached the bottom of the hill, Ryoga stumbled, allowing Akane to surge ahead. 

The soldiers whirled around at the noise. “It’s that maniac again!” the mechanic cried. “And he’s got a sidekick this time!”

Akane bared her teeth.  _ Who were they calling a sidekick?  _ She was going to knock their teeth in.

“Let’s get out of here!” a soldier screamed.

And just like that, the soldiers dropped what they were doing and hightailed it down the road. In less than a minute, the area was deserted. “Are you kidding me? I wanna punch somebody!” Akane shouted angrily, whirling around in a circle as she looked for an opponent.

A flash of a bare foot low to the ground immediately changed her focus. Rushing over, Akane found Nabiki lying abandoned on a stretcher next to a spindly tree. But it looked more like a stranger than Akane’s cunning older sister. Her blue veins contrasted starkly with her bone white skin, her lips looked swollen, and her pulse fluttered wildly in her neck. Each wheezing breath barely moved the wrinkled brown leaves that had fallen onto her chest.

Akane remembered Miaka’s prophecy, the words writing across the mirror of Akane’s thoughts with a tortured shriek of metal scraping over glass. “ _ Someone you love will die. _ ” 

_ Not Nabiki, please, no. _

_ But wait, didn’t Akane have to die first in the prophecy? Wasn’t she supposed to have a choice about coming back or not? That hadn’t happened yet, so this  _ didn’t count _. Nabiki couldn’t die because this didn’t count! Maybe someday, but not  _ now _. _

Fingers trembling, Akane yanked open her bag and rummaged through the contents. The vial of epinephrine she’d grabbed had a smudged date, so she couldn’t be sure if it had expired. However, it was the only one in the med kit. Mentally crossing her fingers, she pulled the cap off the needle and inserted the needle into the rubber stopper of the jar, pulling the medicine up into the syringe. She took it out and flicked it a few times to remove air bubbles before turning and pushing it into her sister’s thigh. Depressing the plunger, she removed the needle and rubbed hard at the site, trying to encourage the drug to absorb through the muscle and into the bloodstream.  _ Did epinephrine work for slow allergic reactions as well as acute ones? _ Akane didn’t know.

“Come on, Nabiki,” Akane begged. Turning back to her bag, she rummaged for more ideas. She didn’t know if it would help, but she broke open two antihistamine capsules with her fingers and poured them on Nabiki’s swollen tongue. Akane splashed a little water into Nabiki’s mouth and massaged her throat to try and get her to swallow. About half the water trickled out the sides of her mouth, but some managed to go down her throat with only a slight cough. Hopefully it’d gone into her belly and not her lungs.

“You’d never live down the shame of dying like this, big sis. Fight back for me. Fight!”  _ Was Akane imagining it, or was color returning to Nabiki’s cheeks? _ Her breathing did sound slightly less labored. Akane picked up her sister’s hand and rested it palm up on her thigh. Nabiki’s fingers splayed out like the seeds of the half-blown dandelions they used to share as children, pressing their cheeks together to make a wish before blowing the last of the seeds. The memory made Akane’s lips tremble. Placing her fingers on Nabiki’s wrist, Akane counted the beats of her sister’s heart. Gradually, blessedly, they slowed from a gallop to a trot.

“How is she?” Ryoga asked, limping over. 

“I don’t know,” Akane said, dashing water from her eyes. She sounded like a helpless little girl, but she wasn’t.  _ She wasn’t!  _ Forcing herself to blow out a breath, she tried again. “I gave Nabiki a shot of epinephrine and an antihistamine. I think a little of the color is coming back to her cheeks and her breathing sounds less labored. Her heartbeat’s slowing down, so... that’s good? That’s good,” she corrected herself more confidently.

“Great,” Ryoga grunted, putting a hand on the tree to steady himself. “I didn’t see any sign of Ranma. They must have taken the idiot in the other truck.”

“Yeah,” Akane said, discouraged all over again. Her legs hurt and she was tired, just physically and mentally exhausted. Turning to her sister, she coaxed a little bit more water down her throat to buy herself some time to think. Luckily for Akane, something finally seemed to be going right. Nabiki was recovering rapidly. Her breathing had become barely audible and her swelling had gone down.

“What do you want to do next?” Ryoga asked. 

Looking up, Akane saw lines of pain bracketing his mouth. “That depends on you,” she said slowly. Her mind darted over several possibilities. “Can you even walk?”

Ryoga let go of the tree and puffed out his chest. “I’m fine. I can do whatever needs doing.”

At Akane’s withering look, he deflated. He looked away for a second and then met her eyes steadily. “My hip’s swollen and stiff. I came down on it too hard coming down the hill. I can’t move fast, but I can and will move through it. I’m the master of my pain, it doesn’t master me.”

“Okay, thank you for being honest.” Looking down, Akane smoothed back Nabiki’s sweat-dampened hair. “We have two problems: Nabiki needs to get to a doctor and Ranko needs to be rescued. There’s a chance Nabiki will recover on her own or that Ranko will rescue herself. However, neither is guaranteed. In this place, it’s not wise to merely hope for the best…” Akane trailed off.

“Where are we exactly?” Ryoga looked around. “Strangely, I don’t think I’ve ever been here before and I’ve been most places in my wanderings.”

“Iriomote Island in Okinawa,” Akane answered steadily. “There’s a rat demon who’s taken over the leader of a local militia, making him into a self-styled prophet who promises to restore Okinawa to its former glory for the small price of the occasional soul in tribute. He’s the one who’s taken Ranko. Who knows what evil thing they have planned.”

“Nothing good,” Ryoga scowled. Leaning against the tree, he peeled off bits of bark in his agitation.

“No,” Akane agreed. She hadn’t even told him the half of it. But knowing wouldn’t help him agree to her plan. Smoothing back her sister’s hair one more time, she stood up. “We need to split up. I’ll go after Ranma and you either carry or pull Nabiki on her stretcher back down the road until you find a town or a way to get her off this island to safety. I’ll send the medicines with you.”

“But what if you get captured too?” Ryoga asked, speaking to her deepest fear.

It made her respond more harshly than she’d intended. “Then I get captured. In the meantime, Nabiki could die or an unconscious Ranko could be raped or sacrificed to feed a demon. We have to save them both and this is the best I’ve got! Do you have a better plan? Because you and Nabiki are both a liability at this point.”

Ryoga’s face had gone pale and the corners of his lips tugged down, but he didn’t argue. “You’re right. I’m sorry. If that’s what you want, I’ll go.” Looking down, he tugged at the hem of his purple tunic. “I don’t know if you got my letter or not, but I’m also sorry for what I did. Before. If this is how you want me to help, I’ll get Nabiki to safety. Then I’ll come back with help. I’d do anything for you, Akane.”

Wind rustled the green fronds overhead, swaying the trunks of the smallest trees. It dried the sweat on Akane’s face and cooled her thoughts. “What you did was wrong, but I’m doing my best to forgive you. Getting my sister to safety will go a long way to help with that. If you can, contact the monks at the Martial Arts Geometry Temple. They’ve fought these guys before. I have to get going if I’m going to catch up with Ranma, but thank you, Ryoga, and good luck.”

Although she sounded strong and confident, Akane secretly felt terrified of going back to the demon’s fortress alone.  _ But what other choice did she have? _ Ranma needed her. Before she could second-guess herself, Akane reached out through their spiritual ties. They led up the road where the soldiers had disappeared. From what she could tell, Ranma still slept, but didn’t seem harmed considering the deep well of energy she still sensed. 

As soon as her attention turned to Ranma’s energy, it started flowing into Akane. Her trembling muscles sucked it in like drought-parched earth. Guiltily she slammed closed the ties, but even a brief gulp made her feel like she’d just woken from a decadent sleep.

“Good luck,” Ryoga said, breaking her from her thoughts.

Akane forced herself to give him a smile and nod.  _ They’d all need luck if to get out of this mess alive, but at least those two had a better chance than her and Ranma.  _

Turning, Akane jogged away up the rough dirt road twisting through the jungle. A yellow-banded black lizard scurried away from her pounding feet. Shafts of sunlight broke through the canopy, looking like golden tentpoles holding up a pavilion of green leaves. Akane could either run away into the shadows with her belly to the ground like the lizard, or stand tall and shine bright like the sunlight forcing its way through the trees. 

Akane would be the sun.

_ I’m coming, Ranma. Just hold on. _


	39. Frustrating Felines & Confrontations

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning for violence in this chapter

 

For over an hour, Akane had surreptitiously followed two soldiers through a tunnel of green bladed leaves and smooth barked trees. All of the green on green on brown mixed with her tiredness, leading to unfocused eyes and heavy feet. Unexpectedly the soldiers increased their pace. Before Akane could prod her weary body into a burst of speed, they disappeared around the trunk of a huge tree. 

Akane followed, rushing around the giant tree trunk only to stumble to a halt as the jungle abruptly ended, replaced by bushes, a few thin trees, and tall stalks of grass in a wide clearing butting up against a cliff. The dirt road led to the gate of a compound flying a familiar black and purple flag. The two soldiers rushed through the open gate and disappeared inside. Everything looked hastily built, with slightly crooked wooden buildings and walls leaning up against a steep cliff face of light grey and rust orange porous rock. Green and brown vegetation hung down from the upper lip of the cliff like a scraggly beard. 

Pulling on the last of her reserves, Akane slunk down into a crouch and snuck forward through the tall grasses leading up to the compound. Only about a third of the trees in front of the walls had been cleared, giving her lots of cover. She aimed for the less-tamed patches near where the wall met the cliff. Either luck or poor training had the guards on the walls turning their backs to peer down curiously at the action inside the gate.  

Going as quickly as possible, Akane climbed a thin tree near the wall. Broken stems and branches coated her hands in sticky sap and fibers of brown bark. The trunk bent under her weight as she neared the top. Leaning towards the wall, Akane let go with one hand. Her outstretched fingers caught the edge of the wall and pulled her closer. Taking a deep breath, Akane flung herself forward, scrabbling to pull herself up and over the top of the wall. A grunt escaped her as she slammed down onto her side. Sure she was about to be discovered at any moment, Akane flattened herself to the walkway. Everything hurt.

When no one cried out or came running, she lifted her head to look around the compound and tried to catch her breath.  A garage stood by the front gate. Several soldiers congregated outside it, talking to the new arrivals. Opposite the garage and gate, the compound had three distinct areas nestled up against the cliff. On the left stood a barn surrounded by tall grass and bushes. A sturdy wall enclosed it with three different barred gates. In the middle of the compound sprawled a two-story building with a squat addition jutting out towards the walled barn area. Another flag flew from the central building’s peak, this one proudly displaying a rat. At first she thought that the right side of the compound only had an empty field. 

However, on second glance she noticed a shadowed pit half-covered by a tarp. Akane refused to speculate on what the pit might be used for. Unless it was for roasting a pig during a luau, she was probably better off not knowing. 

Swallowing hard, Akane crept down the nearest staircase and tried to think of a plan. Was Ranma in the back of a truck now parked in the garage or had they already moved the redhead somewhere else? Akane couldn’t fight all those soldiers, but maybe she could somehow sneak Ranko out into the jungle until the redhead woke up.Then they’d think of a plan together. 

First, however, she had to find out where Ranma was. At the bottom of the stairs sat an abandoned handcart holding several buckets along with a toolbox, shovel, and ladder. A black and purple jacket hung over one handle. Akane pulled the jacket on to blend in. Ducking down behind the handcart, she pretended to tie her shoe in case anyone glanced over. 

Despite the pulse thrumming in her neck like a trapped hummingbird, Akane stubbornly forced her mind to drop into a meditative state. Finding the cord of ki stretching out into the aether, she followed it towards Ranma. The spiritual tie curved to the left away from the garage, ending somewhere near the barn inside the wall with three barred gates. 

Glancing over her shoulder, Akane saw that the soldiers had somehow become more distracted as time went on instead of less. There was shouting, pointing of fingers, and even a set of dice that they were throwing and arguing over. 

“The prophet’ll be back any moment, so someone’s gotta do it! There’ll be more of us dead if we don’t!” a soldier exclaimed.

“Then you go in there!” another cried hysterically. “Better sucked dry later than torn to pieces and eaten right now!”

That sounded pretty awful, but she didn’t have time to figure out what they were arguing about. Akane didn’t want to be here when the prophet got back. The thought of meeting him scared her. Reaching out down the tie on her finger, Akane took a quick gulp of energy from Ranko. She wasn’t going to have the energy to do this otherwise. She didn’t know what had the soldiers all worked up, but she had to act now if she was going to save Ranma. 

Grabbing the ladder off the cart, she walked over to where the shadows fell thickest along the inner wall by the barn, doing her best to act like she belonged. The two gates she walked past were both locked tight. Placing the ladder against the inner wall, she darted a glance back as casually as possible to make sure everyone was still distracted. 

Unfortunately, the arguments looked like they were dying down. Akane didn’t have much time. One of the men glanced over at her. Muscles clenching up and down her back, she braced for discovery. The soldier turned back to the shouting group and crossed his arms, but otherwise didn’t react.

She had to get to Ranma before he looked back again. Racing up the rungs during his moment of inattention, Akane cast a quick look over the wall just to make sure the ground was clear of obstacles and then jumped inside. As she rolled to her feet, her eyes darted around. Nothing moved. No one started yelling outside the wall. Maybe this crazy plan of hers would actually work. Feeling a bit smug, she hoped her luck would hold as she decided to look for Ranma in the barn first. 

Walking forward, she stumbled over a single black boot hidden in the long grass. The uneven mound a few feet ahead turned out to be a jacket. It looked like it had been ripped in two. Despite the dark color, she could make out stiff, reddish-brown patches that looked like dried blood. 

Uneasy, Akane glanced around again. Nothing moved. It was quiet. Hair prickling, she took a step towards the barn. Too quiet.

Behind her back, something growled. Akane flipped around and lifted her arms into a defensive position. Three things—  _ people? _ —crouched in the shadows of the wall. She’d swear that they hadn’t been there a second ago. Akabe had expected animals based on the sound, but the longer she looked, the more sure she became that the scarred faces glaring back at her were human, or at least had started out that way. 

The unnatural proportions of the three women’s bodies made her stomach turn over queasily. Matted hair stuck out from their heads and the tips of their unnaturally large ears. Yellow, slit-pupiled eyes glared at Akane above elongated jaws full of pointed teeth. They crouched with their weight on the tips of their toes and the knuckles of their hands, causing their knees and elbows to jut out. Their legs were too short and had strange bulges of flesh in unexpected places. Ugly scars crisscrossed their skin like a crochet pattern gone wrong. It gave their faces a feline cast. One of the three seemed younger, with a body more human and less twisted, but the madness in her eyes burned the hottest.

Memory sparked. They reminded Akane of the cat-man she and Ranma had fought when they’d freed the female monks, though he’d treated Akane almost reverently as he’d tried to force her to take the pearls in his jeweled cask and come with him. Wrenching her mind away from the memory, Akane thought instead about the soldier on the plane who’d mentioned, “the Prophet’s crazy cat guard.”  _ Could these women be what they’d been talking about? _ They made Akane’s skin crawl.

As they stalked forward, the sunlight revealed flaking blood streaked across the backs of their hands and smeared across their chins and cheeks, staining the collars of their purple and black jackets. “N-nice, kitties,” Akane said shakily, shuffling backwards towards the barn.  Amazingly, the older two scarred women actually responded. Growls stopping, they tilted their heads to the side with curiosity. Glancing at each other, they sat back and suddenly regarded Akane with what looked like recognition and pleasure. 

The youngest woman, however, seemed even angrier. She lifted her blood-smeared upper lip and snarled. Seeing Akane’s fear, she dropped her head and lunged. Akane called on all her skills to dodge, scrambling backwards, trying to just get inside the barn to find either a weapon or means of escape. Anything that would help her survive the next minute.

As Akane backpedaled through the open door into the shadowed barn, she slammed into someone and tripped. Hands grabbed her, pulling her carefully upright and against a broad chest. For a second she relaxed unconsciously into the hold. Then she noticed that the body pressed against her back felt burning hot. Too hot. 

Jerking away, Akane saw the melted wax face of the cat-man she’d just been thinking about. He reached out and stroked his fingers down her sides, squeezing once with a pleased growl. Flinching away in horror, Akane punched hard, snapping his face sideways. The cat-man staggered back. He spit blood. Then he turned back and smiled pleasantly at her with red-stained teeth, seemingly unphased.

Outside the barn door, the cat-woman snarled and paced, not coming inside as she raked at the air with her fingers. Shavings of wood from the side of the barn peeled off into the air. Akane gulped. The cat-man turned with a protective snarl, throwing himself at the woman outside. Hitting her full on, they tumbled end over end into the grass with snarls and disappeared around the corner.  

Even though it was probably useless, Akane rushed to close and bar the door. When she turned back around, she couldn’t help but jump in fright. A bare foot hung out of one of the stalls. It wasn’t moving. This situation had all the makings of a haunted house or horror movie. Akane hated being scared.

_ Was it the owner of the boot outside, dragged in here for dinner? Or another of those cat-warriors?  _ Listening closely, Akane heard a rhythmic rumble coming from the stall. At least the owner of the foot sounded alive. 

Unless the sound came from something eating the foot. Swallowing hard, Akane crept forward. She peeked over the edge of the stall, ready to attack the first thing that moved. Instead, she found Ranko snoring lightly, her limbs outflung like a dropped doll. “Ranma!” 

As Akane rushed into the shadowed stall, a shiver racked the redhead’s body, clad only in boxers and a tank top. Although the barn felt cooler than the steamy jungle outside, it still felt warm to Akane. Perhaps feeling cold was a side-effect of the purple gas. Things had been too crazy for Akane to notice last time.

“If you could wake up now, I’d really appreciate it,” Akane said with fake cheer, rubbing her hands briskly up and down Ranko’s arms to warm the cool skin. “Really really appreciate it. If you want to be useful, now’s the time.” The redhead didn’t respond. 

Mouth tightening, Akane took off the black and purple jacket she’d stolen and pulled it over Ranko’s limp arms. As Akane buttoned the jacket up, she couldn’t help but scold, “You idiot, how’s you let yourself get knocked out by these people  _ twice _ ?” 

Cradling Ranma between her knees, Akane wrapped her arms around her unconscious fiancé, dropping a kiss on the redhead’s crown. “Whatever, fine. I guess I’ll just have to rescue you again. Luckily you’re easier to carry in your female form. I’ll just…” trailing off, Akane realized that she hadn’t thought things out.  _ How  _ were  _ they going to get out? _

First they had to get past those cat-people without getting eaten. Then up and over the wall. The wall full of locked gates. And she’d left the ladder on the other side. “Stupid, impulsive Akane,” she whispered, hitting herself in the forehead. “I guess we’re both useless right now.”

Assuming she did get them over this wall, they still had to get over the outer wall without being seen or breaking a bone in the process. At least once in the jungle, they could hide until Ranma woke up. Then they’d hike for the coast and circle the island until they hit a town. Only 90% of the island was uninhabited, which gave them a 10% chance of success. She’d faced worse odds before, as long as she ignored the abysmal odds of getting out into the jungle unnoticed in the first place.

If only she could leap as high as Ranma. If Ranma were awake, she’d jump them over these walls easily. Tapping the redhead’s cheeks firmly, Akane put her lips to Ranko’s ears, “Hey, wake up. I need you, hotshot. Wake up!” Ranko’s delicate nose twitched and her mouth pursed, but then her face went slack again. Repeated shaking didn’t seem to do anything. 

The growls outside had died down. Akane probably didn’t have much more time to figure this rescue out before things were taken out of her hands. Even now soldiers could be massing outside to capture her. Feeling paranoid, she examined the dust motes floating in the shafts of sunlight for tinges of lavender smoke. Thankfully the light in the barn seemed a normal yellow. 

Biting her lip, Akane turned her attention to the spiritual plane, searching for any spark of consciousness from Ranma’s side of their spiritual bond. Nothing jumped out at her there either. 

Discouraged, Akane was about to give up when the sensation of a furry head rubbed beneath her chin. It made her feel a little bit better. Then it pushed through her jaw and into her mind. That felt very strange. Akane both felt and heard a meow. Everything vibrated. She still didn’t speak cat, but nevertheless, she understood. Ranma’s cat couldn’t wake up the human side of Ranma, but it could fully wake up the cat spirit inside his body. With Akane’s help, the cat could take complete control. 

Ranma would never agree to that. He’d hate it. But To keep Ranma safe, Akane would do just about anything. She didn’t have any other ideas and they were running out of time. 

“Okay, let’s do it,” Akane agreed. 

Another meow vibrated through her mind. Obeying its promptings, Akane leaned down and kissed Ranma on the lips. Ranko sighed. Fighting back a guilty wince, Akane exhaled slowly and steadily into the redhead’s parted lips. Something uncurled from the base of Akane’s skull and padded down the trail of Akane’s breath, sliding through Ranma’s lips and then stretching out. Lungs empty, Akane sat back and inhaled sharply, staring down at the girl in her lap.

Within seconds, golden lashes fluttered. Blue eyes opened, focusing up at Akane with a dreamy smile. Leaning forward, Ranko rubbed her head under Akane’s chin with a purr. Before Akane could figure out how to react, Ranko slid out of her lap, leaping up onto the top of the stall wall on all fours and looking around curiously.

“We’ve got to get out of here as quickly as possible, Ranma,” Akane said as she rose to her feet with a wobble. 

Ranko glanced at Akane over her shoulder and then leapt down. However, instead of obeying Akane, the redhead began exploring the barn. She pounced on a sunbeam, followed it to a trough of water, and dunked her head down to slurp up a drink. 

Stomping over to the door, Akane gestured. “Come on! Stop acting like an idiot. We might have to fight our way out, so get ready.” Completely disinterested, Ranko leapt up into the loft and disappeared. Rustles and thumbs echoed down from up above, along with a fine mist of dust. 

Akane clenched her teeth. When she’d agreed to wake Ranma up as a cat, she hadn’t meant the most annoying and disobedient parts of a cat.  _ This was ridiculous! _ Right now, she really wished Ranma had a dog curse instead. 

“Ranma, we’re in trouble! We need to escape from here. I need your help. Get down here!” The loft went silent, but Ranko didn’t reappear. “Please,” Akane gritted out. 

Still nothing. 

Huffing in and out, Akane paced back and forth. She took a deep breath and blew it out as slowly as possible, scrubbing her hands through her hair. Okay, she had to approach this differently. 

Making her voice as sweet as possible, Akane coaxed, “Raanmaa, oh Raanma, here kitty-kitty.” 

Two blue eyes popped over the edge of the loft. “Meow?”

“Come’ere Ranma, that’s right. Good boy-girl, good kitty.” Akane gestured to the space at her feet, barely restraining a crow of triumph when Ranko jumped down and rubbed up against her legs. Giving the redhead a good scratch behind the ears, Akane praised, “Who’s my good little kitty cat? You are, that’s right.” Ranko tilted her head and leaned into Akane’s touch.

Grabbing Ranko firmly by the collar of the stolen jacket, Akane tugged her towards the door. “Time to go home. Doesn’t that sound nice? We can snuggle in the livingroom and I’ll give you fish and toys with bells and lots of nice things. We just have to be as sneaky and quiet as possible. I bet a smart cat like you can get us past all those soldiers without being seen, no problem, right?”

Akane unlatched the barn door, but before she could swing it open, a loud  _ BANG _ sounded from just outside. They both jumped. It sounded like a gunshot. Ranko pushed her body protectively between Akane and the door and gave a low growl. Clutching at Ranko’s shoulder, Akane cracked open the door and peeked outside. 

The middle gate had been flung open wide. An unearthly handsome man stood between it and the barn with a gun extended in his hand. He wore bingata robes, the most traditional of all Okinawan patterns, featuring a lightweight fabric decorated with topaz flowers, emerald leaves, and obsidian rats in various orientations on a field of aubergine. Small chips of semi-precious stones highlighted the eyes of the rats. A deep purple sash cinched around his waist.

Perhaps a dozen cat guards huddled together between the barn and the man. They all looked female, with one sporting bright red hair and another blond, and faces that ranged from barely scarred to barely human. The cat-man stood off to the side by himself. Pale-faced soldiers bunched up outside the gate, watching events unfold. Akane took this in during a quick glance before returning to the man in the bingata standing in the middle by himself. Something about him made it difficult to take her eyes off him for very long. 

Snapping his fingers in the air, he tossed his gun carelessly over his shoulder. A panicked-looking soldier dashed forward, barely catching it before it hit the ground. The man scratched his chin and then swung around. “That’s done, and what a waste of a new pet. Now, where’s the soldier who disappointed me?”

The men shuffled, someone yelped, and then a man with a face gone white as tofu was thrown out of the crowd onto his knees. He quickly stumbled back to his feet, wringing his hands. “I’m so sorry. I’ll do better. I will.”

“This is an army of winners, not losers,” the man in the bingata announced. “You follow me because I will free the Ryukyu Islands and bring you power. We are not weak like Americans, Japanese, and Chinese. We are the Uchinaa, the people Uchinaanchu! You do what I say or you face the consequences,” he ended with a hiss.

The soldier fell to his knees and began blubbering for mercy. 

Circling him, the leader waited until his face was hidden from the soldiers at gate before smiling widely with what looked like sick anticipation. With his face towards Akane, she realized that his eyes were completely black, with no white or even colored iris. As his head turned, they flashed an eerie red, like the red caught by a picture taken in the dark. But it was bright outside. Bright enough to see the way his teeth and tongue elongated. The skin over his face shrunk across his bones like heated plastic. He became as ugly as he’d once seemed handsome. 

Akane gulped and shrunk down in her hiding place.  _ Could this be the host of the rat demon who chased her? The so-called Prophet?  _ She really hoped not. He scared her. Maybe he was a monster, but that didn’t mean this monster couldn’t be defeated. It didn’t mean he was an ancient demon.

Reaching out without touching the soldier, the black-eyed man slashed his finger through the air. The blubbering instantly cut off. The soldier’s body dropped to the ground, lifeless. The red light in the monstrous man’s eyes got brighter. Tilting his head back in pleasure, he closed his eyes and breathed out shakily. 

Akane’s skin crawled. She wanted to run away and hide. She wanted to punch that look right off of his face. Looking away, she took a deep breath and tried to stay calm. 

Against her legs, Ranko had arched her back and lowered her head threateningly. Her muscles felt as tense as iron. Face twisted, Ranko glared at the man outside. 

If only that villain didn’t have an army at his back. Right now, attacking would be suicide. Especially if he could kill without even touching someone. 

They needed to get out of here. She had to focus on that. They could make a plan to stop him later, because someone had to, but not now. Now they had to escape.

Making sure she had a firm grip on Ranko’s collar in case she decided to charge outside, Akane looked up. The monstrous features in the man’s face had disappeared. He once more looked handsome except for those black on black eyes. Akane wouldn’t trust it again.

Cocking a hand on his hip, the man turned back to the soldiers. “There now, the problems are all taken care of. I’m very disappointed in all of you. I expect a new stable master in here by sundown. It won’t be long now before I rule these islands. If you can’t follow orders, you won’t reap the rewards of wealth, women, and fame. Sacrifices must be made, but we’re going to rule the world. Remember that!”

“All hail the Prophet!” cried the soldiers in a rough chorus. Most looked excited, while a few seemed scared. 

Akane had to choke back a cry as they confirmed her suspicion that this charismatic and evil man was the Prophet, host of the rat demon who chased her. She’d been stubbornly avoiding the thought, as if all of the evidence didn’t point to it. She prefered her ignorance. Knowing that the demon was so close made her want to panic. 

Akane couldn’t afford to panic.

Outside the gate, several soldiers yelped and swore. Seconds later, a horde of rats streamed in through the legs of the soldiers. They came through the gate and gathered around the prophet’s feet like a carpet of gray and brown fungus. He looked down at them fondly. “Even though I already consumed their souls, it’s still a waste of good shells. Eat them, my pets, and steal their strength for me.” 

The rats surged forward. Half the rats split off to devour the fallen soldier. The rest swarmed to the side and over a body half-hidden in the grass that she hadn’t noticed before. Akane only had a second to recognize the face of the young feline woman who’d attacked her earlier. Then the rats covered it and began to feed. The prophet’s long scarlet tongue darted out to wet his lips. Turning away, Akane braced herself against the wall and threw up violently onto the ground.  _ That woman may have been crazy, but she didn’t deserve to be shot and eaten. Nor the soldier either! Would they do the same to Akane’s body after she birthed demon rats? _ She heaved again and again, until her stomach cramped with emptiness and her vision speckled with black spots. Finally it stopped. 

Akane pushed herself upright and wiped her mouth shakily. Ranko leaned against her legs and gave a low-pitched rumble. “Ranma, we’ve got to get out of here now,” Akane whispered desperately. 

Latching the door, the two made hurried to the door on the opposite side of the barn. Akane peeked outside. She hoped to make it to the wall while everyone was distracted on the other side of the field. 

Unfortunately, a soldier appeared at the top of the wall just before she stepped outside. He gripped the poles of the ladder tightly, knuckles white and sweat glistening on his forehead. In the shadows of the barn door, he overlooked Akane. 

Reaching down, he grabbed a box from a partner and dumped it over the wall. Scraps of food poured out, bouncing across the grass in a scattered pile. He dumped a second box of food and then leaned down, almost disappearing behind the wall. Akane had a vain hope that he might randomly throw the ladder over next, because she really needed a miracle right now and this looked like things were about to get worse instead of better. 

Instead, the man reappeared with a large, chalky pink sphere. Someone on the ground held up a lighter burning with a tall, yellow flame. The soldier lit a fuse on the pink ball and quickly tossed it over the fence. It rolled a few feet before bouncing to a stop in a clump of grass. A plume of pale pink smoke rose up into the air. The breeze caught the smoke and pulled it over the grass and towards the barn like someone pulling a blanket over a bed.

Slamming the door shut, Akane turned and ran towards the center of the barn. She did not want to sleep right now. “We can’t let them knock us out again, Ranma! We have to get out of here or- or-” she glanced around the barn desperately and then looked up, “get above it, maybe the gas won’t rise. Into the loft! Quick!” 

Finding the ladder, she raced up the rungs, flinging her body over the top and twisting around to find… noone. “Ranma? Ranma!” Akane hissed with her hand pressing her shirt over her nose and mouth. “Where are you?”

The redhead stumbled into view with her mouth half-open. She looked up at Akane and smiled dopily. Frowning, Akane gestured urgently. “Come here!” Ranko sneezed and then fell over onto her side.

“Ranma?” Akane said with fear and worry.  _ Had the pink gas knocked Ranma out? _

About to slide back down the ladder while holding her breath, Akane already had one foot on a rung when suddenly she heard a purr. A quick glance down revealed an unexpected sight. Hands cupped into paws, Ranko rolled over onto her back and began batting at the dustmotes in the air. Straw tangled with her red hair and dirt smudged across her cheeks as she rocked back and forth.

A chorus of strange cries sounded outside the barn. Something hit the side of the building and bounced off, making Akane jump. Glancing out a square window, Akane saw the group of cat warriors stumbling towards the mound of food against the wall. They all walked like they were drunk. The cries came from them as they made their crooked paths towards the wall and began devouring the food. 

Ranko suddenly appeared next to Akane in the loft. She butted hard against Akane right as Akane stepped off the ladder, rubbing her face against Akane’s hip and almost knocking Akane out of the loft. Before Akane could push her off, Ranko flung herself half out the window, her dilated eyes focused on the feast below. Leaping forward, Akane grabbed Ranko’s leg and dragged her back inside. Ranko flopped to the ground and sulked. Then she forgot about it as a bug on her hand became fascinating.

A glance out the window on the opposite side showed the Prophet walking towards the barn with a small group of soldiers at his back. Akane’s lungs seized. On the other side the cat soldiers still massed, drugged but still deadly, as shown by the claw marks and curls of wood along the wooden wall. 

Akane glanced around frantically, but there were soldiers everywhere. She couldn’t see an escape.  _ There was no escape! _

At least... not for her. 

However, Ranma might still be saved. On first glance, there wasn’t much difference between Ranko and the cat soldiers outside. You had to be up close to notice the smooth skin, but none of the soldiers seemed to want to get close. Rolling on the ground had turned her hair into a brownish-red tangled mass. Otherwise, drugged, dirty, wearing that jacket, and acting feline, Ranko fit right in.  

Plus, no matter how scary those ladies outside looked, Ranko could defend herself, probably giving worse than she got. Ranko could hide with the other cat women until her human side woke up. Then Ranma could escape, get help, and come back to rescue Akane. 

And if Ranma was too late… well, at least he’d be safe. That’s how she ended up here. No matter what, she wanted Ranma to be safe. He’d said he didn’t want to live without her, but those were just pretty words. He’d be sad, but he’d find a way to go on. She loved him too much to think otherwise.

However, Ranma did love her too. As long as they both lived, she still had hope. She had to trust that he would do everything he could to save her, trust that there’d still be something left to save by the time time he came back.  

Holding that belief tight to her chest to ward off the frost creeping along her skin, Akane crouched down and pulled Rama into a tight hug. Eyes slipping shut, she pressed a kiss to Ranma’s forehead. “I love you,” Akane breathed.

Then she leaned back and met Ranko’s confused eyes, all pupil except for a ring of blue the color of summer skies. Forcing a smile, Akane nudged the redhead towards the food outside the window. A faint pink cloud still hung around it. “Go on, have a snack, make some friends, and try to keep your head down, alright? Stay safe. Be happy.” Akane’s breath hitched for a moment, but she refused to break her smile. 

Ranko padded over to the window. The redhead put her arms on the sill and then looked back over her shoulder at Akane hesitantly. “Go on,” Akane ordered. “Hurry or the fish will all be gone.” 

Time was running out.

Turning away, the redhead jumped out the window, landing on the grass below as if no heavier than a fallen leaf. Ranko glanced back up at the loft window. Akane gestured her forward. Staggering sideways, Ranko turned and made a zigzag towards the pile of food. Muscling aside a thin brunette, who snarled but made way, Ranko began eating. She fit in perfectly. When no one cried out at the imposter, Akane let out a slow breath.

The door below opened with a creak, the slats rattling as it bounced lightly off the wall. Footsteps marched inside.

Not giving herself time to think, Akane dived into the mounded hay and burrowed, trying to cover herself as quickly as possible. Hay scratched her bare skin and dust tickled the back of her throat. She barely kept herself from sneezing. As the steps came closer, she forced herself to hold still.

“Where is my Chosen One?” the Prophet’s angry voice demanded from the empty stall below. Fingers of slimy energy slid across her spirit, but Akane clamped down hard, refusing to let anything in or out.

Over the next few minutes, the soldiers below frantically searched the barn. They came up into the loft and stomped around. Someone almost stepped on Akane’s fingers. 

However, they didn’t find her. The men climbed back down the ladder. Hope swelled.

“My Lord, I have an idea,” a female voice rose above the clatter. Akane frowned. She hadn’t seen any women except the cat soldiers, and they didn’t seem capable of speech.

“Speak,” the Prophet ordered crisply.

The woman spoke again, her voice sounding strangely familiar. “You sense that she is near, my Lord, but your soldiers can’t find her. Perhaps your rats would be better suited to the task.”

“Hmm, yes, like on the tv when human police use bloodhounds,” the Prophet mused. 

The atmosphere in the barn changed, like the feel of the air before a lightning strike. Each breath Akane took felt more labored. She heard rats squeaking, louder and louder. The ladder creaked. A rat hissed nearby. More joined the chorus. It sounded like they were everywhere, the noises worse than fingernails on a chalkboard. Akane wanted to cover her ears.

Suddenly a hand thrust into the straw and clamped on her arm, yanking her out roughly. “Found her!” a large soldier cried. Frightened, Akane barely bit back a cry at the last minute. She couldn’t chance Ranma hearing and coming running to the rescue. In Ranko’s drugged state, the Prophet and his army might try to kill her. 

A frantic glance out the window showed the group of cat warriors lounging back on the grass in the pink haze of a new smoke bomb. Maybe Ranko was too drugged to notice anything at the barn. Akane could only hope, the only hope she had left right now.

Brown and black rats covered every surface of the loft, staring at her with beady little eyes. Before Akane could decide what to do, the large, hawk-nosed man holding her arm dragged her over to the edge of the loft, scattering rats left and right. Akane couldn’t help but cry out as he pushed her over the edge and she dropped, dangling only from his grip. Rough hands reached up and caught her, pulling her down until her feet touched the floor. 

Someone wrenched her arms behind her back before she regained her balance. Cold metal circled her wrists and ratcheted down tightly against her skin. Akane kicked back and someone swore. 

The hawk-nosed soldier jumped down from the loft, landing next to her with a thud. Akane’s head only came up to his broad chest and his fingers looked twice as thick as hers. He grabbed her from behind and manhandled her forward, keeping her off balance as he avoided her attacks. Panting as she fought to escape the soldier, Akane somehow managed to forget the most important person in the barn. The soldier shoved Akane down onto her knees where the light from the open barn door fell brightest. 

“How magnificent,” the Prophet purred as he circled around her. Terror rose up Akane’s throat, choking her breath and freezing her struggles. The light caught the gems on his bingata, making it look like the rodents there had come to life and were staring at her hungrily.

Stepping in front of her, the Prophet’s black eyes dragged up and down Akane’s body. “Too bad I can’t impregnate you the traditional way, eh?” Fingers stroked down the side of her cheek and cupped her chin. Rage surged, lending Akane courage as she lunged for his fingers with her teeth. 

The Prophet deftly avoided her attack. Stepping back, he casually backhanded her across the face. Pain exploded across the side of her head. Only the hands biting into her shoulders kept Akane from sprawling onto the floor. Blood trickled down her face.

Grabbing a fistful of hair, the Prophet wrenched Akane’s head back to peer deep into her eyes. Those black orbs trapped her gaze. Something forced its way past her protections and into her spirit. Violated and covered in evil, Akane began to retch, trying to get it out, but since it was spiritual and not physical, it did no good. The Prophet dropped her head. Akane hung limply. Everything hurt.

“Sachi, come over here and look at this,” he ordered.

Forcing her head up, Akane saw the long missing female monk sashay over from where she’d been leaning against the wall. Her once sleek hair now looked ragged, the blond color grown out into gray-threaded brown with orangish tips. The cruel expression in her eyes looked completely foreign from the woman who’d tried to help Akane all those months ago. Sachi saw Akane’s horrified expression and smirked. 

“This is the right girl, isn’t it?” the Prophet asked impatiently.

“Yes, my Lord.” Sachi bowed her head. “This is your Chosen One, Akane.”

Scowling, the Prophet gestured sharply. “They why do they feel so weak?” 

Sachi griped Akane’s face tightly, her fingers biting into Akane’s cheeks.  The tainted monk battered her way into Akane’s ki. It felt nothing like the delicate touch Akane remembered. The cat inside Akane’s soul fought back, but whatever it had done to wake up Ranma had weakened it. Sachi easily blocked both the feline’s and Akane’s attempts and kept going.

After several agonizing moments, Sachi stepped back from Akane with a frown. “The girl’s spirit was messy before, but it’s gotten worse somehow. It’s nothing I’ve ever seen before. As for your offspring, they’re sickly, my Lord. We can still birth them, but they haven’t thrived. Before you enlightened me, I foolishly weakened their grip on her. Perhaps they’ve never quite recovered from my mistake.”

“That won’t do. Weak offspring are useless.” The Prophet stepped closer and licked his lips, leaving them wet and shiny. “I like Akane, though. She’s beautiful, strong, and looks…” his mouth lingered over the syllables, “ _ tasty _ .” He grinned, flashing teeth that looked too long and sharp for a human mouth. Akane couldn’t blink as they grew larger and larger, opening in a gruesome gape so wide she couldn’t help but scream as it snapped shut and swallowed her down into darkness. 

 


	40. The Children, the Courtyard, & the Pit

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning for violence against women and children (and men, but they’re bad guys).

 

Akane woke up feeling strange. Each breath of air seemed unusually sweet and her limbs strangely light. Opening her eyes, she sat up and looked around, letting the blanket pool at her waist. The room was empty except for the futon she slept on and the closed door. Narrow windows no wider than her hand let in sunlight and a gentle breeze. Stretching her arms, Akane released a sigh. She felt wonderful. Although smaller than her bedroom, the room somehow felt much bigger. Or maybe she felt bigger.

Shaking off the strange thought, Akane decided to go over the facts. She’d been caught by the demon Prophet. He’d done something to her, but she didn’t think she’d died again. Wouldn’t she know, somehow?

Dropping into a light meditation, Akane couldn’t believe it when she found her spiritual landscape radically changed for the better. The demon was gone, completely gone. The putrid threads corrupting her spirit had disappeared. She was clean for the first time in months.

However, her joy quickly turned to panic when she couldn’t find Ranma’s rough weaving. Akane lost focus and opened her eyes, knuckles turning white on her blanket. As much as she’d resented and feared the spiritual ties to Ranma, she now realized that she didn’t want them gone. They were HERS, just like Ranma was. Her fiercely possessive feelings caught Akane by surprise.

Taking a shaky breath, Akane clamped down on her emotions and examined her ki again. After a few moments of desperate searching, she shifted her way of seeing and— _ there _ .  _ Found him.  _

Without the threat of the demon, Ranma’s ties felt so different that she’d overlooked them. Akane couldn’t help but smile in relief and surprise. They were beautiful, sleek and smooth and strong, from the thin threads stretching out from her fingertips to the thick cord looped around her throat. 

No longer in a panic, Akane tried to reach down the cord of ki to connect with Ranma. She felt a rush of affection. He paused as if thinking really hard and then sent worry. Akane couldn’t help but respond with pleasure at being demon free. While trying to figure out how to say more, she felt Ranma’s relief turn into frustration. She tugged the cord lightly, asking for more information, asking him to find her. Ranma’s frustration drained away, only to be replaced by confusion, a feeling of sickness, and then lethargy. Despite her efforts, she couldn’t get anything more out of him. It felt like Ranma was still being drugged. 

When another poke resulted in an irritated and miserable feline growl, Akane couldn’t help but wince guiltily. It looked like there also wasn’t much human in charge of his body yet. She should have noticed sooner that Ranma’s thoughts felt simple and cat-like. 

Although she still didn’t know what else she could have done to protect Ranma from getting captured, it was looking more and more like helping the cat to take control had been a bad idea. Ranma’s human side should have woken up by now, or at the least his cat side should want to come find Akane. Whatever drugs they were using on their cat warriors must be affecting Ranma. It might even be worse for Ranma than for the others, since the redhead didn’t have the same monstrous mutation. 

Of course, Ranma had proved stupidly strong before. And stubborn. And extraordinary. If Ranma would just figure out how to return to being a human already, she’d really appreciate it. The sooner they got out of here, the better. 

Giving up on getting more out of her ties to Ranma, Akane forced herself to think back on all of Miaka’s dire prophesies. Maybe something in there could help her now. She’d already conceived the string of pearls, incubating demon rat babies for months. They were gone now, but she had a bad feeling that the demon wasn’t done with her yet. 

Miaka had also told Akane that, “for the mother, looping is the only hope. You've already looped back. Accept the loop between, remember to loop forward.” Akane was the mother, so maybe she’d looped back from being dead? She couldn’t think of anyone’s life she’d saved recently to forge a new loop, but if looping just meant some sort of spiritual connection, Ranma was the most likely recipient. Considering how she’d freaked out when she couldn’t find his ties, she’d obviously accepted the loop between them. She’d even done the whole earring life energy binding ritual with him, which was another kind of loop too. But what did looping forward mean? 

Stymied, Akane moved on to Miaka’s second prophecy. Akane didn’t like thinking about having to die again before turning nineteen. What had just happened with the demon probably didn’t count, especially since Miaka had promised that she’d have two choices when death came. Neither choice seemed good. Either Akane’s soul would be sent to the demon plane for eternal torment, or she’d come back to life and doom a bunch of other people to death, including someone she loved. Even then it wouldn’t guarantee victory, just give her a better chance to get lucky enough to destroy the demon. Thank goodness at least Nabiki was safe with Ryoga, but Akane still had to worry about Ranma.

Swallowing hard, Akane felt sick. Ranma couldn’t die. Not Ranma. It seemed almost an impossible thought. Anyone but Ranma. Why couldn’t it be a pet goldfish or a beloved doll from childhood? Why did it have to be a person? And if someone had to die, why couldn’t it be an accident instead of a deliberate choice on Akane’s part to let it happen? Life really wasn’t fair.

Then again, who said that Miaka’s prophecies would come true anyways? She could’ve been wrong. Besides, they were vague enough that the words might mean something entirely different than what Akane assumed. Worrying about them wouldn’t help anything.

Akane decided to get up and moving. The door didn’t look too sturdy, so she could probably bust it down, especially now that she didn’t have a constant drain on her energy. Since she’d already been caught, she might as well make things as noisy and painful as possible for her captors. Bad guys rarely expected a girl to fight back with any skill. Teaching them differently was one of life’s joys. Walking over to examine the door, she gave the doorknob an experimental twist. Unexpectedly it moved, sending the unlocked door swinging open.

Surprised, Akane stumbled out with fists raised, only to find herself in a large room full of children. Seated around several platters of food, they looked just as shocked to see her as she was to find them. She counted eight children, all looking around the age of ten, give or take a couple of years. 

Terrified by her appearance, they jumped to their feet and scurried back against the wall as far from her as possible. Several of them sported bruises on their faces and arms, with skin rubbed raw around their wrists. It made Akane mad. She felt a surge of protectiveness.

A bruised, round-faced girl, possibly the oldest child, stepped up in front of the other children. Someone had backhanded her, swelling her cheek and fattening her lip. “Are you here to rescue us? Or are you a prisoner too?” she asked bravely, hope warring with fear in her eyes. 

“I’m a prisoner, but it won’t be for long,” Akane announced with bravado, coming forward to kneel down at the nearest tray and grab herself an onigiri, not coincidentally making herself smaller than the still-standing children. “I’m Akane, what’re your names? I need to know who I’m taking out with me when I escape.”

Eyes that seemed too old and bruised for such a young face examined Akane. Then the girl’s bruised face crumpled. She took a noisy breath and wiped her eyes. Sitting down across from Akane, she hugged herself tightly. “I’m Hiroko. They took us all yesterday from a few different villages. What about you?” The other children drifted over and cautiously resumed eating.

A few hours later, the jingle of keys came at the door. The lock clanked open and a single guard came into the room. “Hey brats, I’m here for your food trays,” he announced. “I need the prettiest girl to help me carry them.” Licking his lips, he examined the faces in front of him, zeroing in on Arata, a small, angelic-faced boy who’d shyly told Akane that he’d just turned nine last month. The guard leered. “Or the prettiest boy.” 

In his distraction, he didn’t notice Akane creeping behind him along the wall. She leapt forward and bashed him over the head with the tray in her hand as hard as she could. The wood splintered with the blow. Akane used the remaining piece to backhand him across the side of his head. The guard’s eyes rolled up and he collapsed to the floor, unconscious. 

Snatching the keys hanging out of his pocket, Akane darted to the door and looked up and down the hall. “Looks clear,” Akane called back, “Hiroko, lead us out.” The older girl claimed to remember the way through the halls to get out of the building. Akane had no idea, since she’d been unconscious at the time. With luck, they’d get to the garage unseen, steal a truck, and bust out of there. Once the kids were safe, Akane could come back for Ranma in the confusion.

Just like they’d practiced, the kids paired off and quickly followed Akane and Hiroko down the hall. They made it all of the way to the courtyard without raising an alarm. Out front, the main gate stood open. Only a couple of sleepy-eyed guards stood out in the heavy humidity and heat of midday. Looking left and right, Akane couldn’t see anyone else outside. She’d have to deal with the guards after she got all of the kids to a truck in the garage. Luckily little Arata knew how to drive a truck, as long as he could reach the pedals. Akane planned to have the boy drive the truck out of the gate if she needed to delay the guards.

“Ready?” Akane asked the kids quietly, waiting for their brave little nods. They’d be out in the open crossing the courtyard, but there wasn’t another choice. “Go,” she gestured sharply. They broke cover and ran for the garage, with Hiroko and Arata in the lead and Akane bringing up the rear in case anyone tripped. 

They’d almost all made the shadow of the garage when Sachi came sauntering through the open gate with a basket of jungle herbs on her hip. Seeing them, Sachi stopped, all her muscles going tight. Her expression became strange, as if she was waging an internal battle. The wrinkles around her mouth and eyes deepened. Akane felt a moment of hope as their eyes locked. 

Then Sachi’s pupils contracted, making her eyes look almost yellow instead of brown. The expression on her face smoothed out and her body went languid. Akane watched with despair as Sachi, without shifting her gaze, lifted her fingers to her lips and whistled a long note, followed by two short bursts.

“To the truck!” Akane cried, stealth abandoned with discovery, pushing the children to run towards the open garage doors. 

Before she could follow, someone rammed into her side, sending her tumbling end over end. Akane landed face down in the dirt. A bell began clanging. Pushing herself up before she’d even caught her breath, she found herself slammed back down as a large soldier jumped on her back and grabbed hold of her arms. No matter how she wiggled, she couldn’t knock him off. 

Gathering her strength, Akane went limp for a moment to lull her attacker. As soon as he relaxed, she wrenched her body to the side. Dislodging his weight long enough to get a knee and arm under her body, she heaved herself up with a cry. 

A large, hairy arm appeared in front of Akane’s face, trying to snap around her neck. She arched her back to give herself enough room to rear back her head and clamp her teeth down on his forearm. Then she twisted her head sharply. A male voice bellowed as blood flooded her mouth. The man jerked back, ripping his arm further. Akane twisted into the opening, bringing her elbow around to land like a hammer against his temple. He fell to the ground, dazed.

Spitting the foul taste of his flesh from her mouth, Akane came to her feet. “Akane!” Hiroko shouted, followed by high-pitched screams. Akane turned. The remaining guard from the wall had a frantically struggling Hiroko trapped in his beefy arms. Arata’s untrained kicks bounced off his boots. The remaining children huddled against the wall of the barn, clutching at each other and crying. 

Before Akane could rush to the rescue, the children focused on something behind Akane and began shrieking. Twisting back around, Akane’s heart stopped. A pasty-faced guard had opened one of the gates holding in the cat warriors. It bounced hard off the wall as a flood of monsters came swarming out into the courtyard.

Into this suddenly ran two guards from out of the main building. They aimed for Akane and the children by the garage. “Get back here, you brats!” the one in front snarled. They didn’t notice the charging cat warriors until it was too late. Turning as one if scenting hunting prey, the group of monstrous women circled the guards, cutting off escape. 

Terrified, the guards tried to scramble back inside, but they were pounced on, their struggling bodies borne to the ground. High-pitched yowls of excitement drowned out their masculine screams. The screams abruptly silenced as their throats ripped open in a spray of scarlet blood. A torn off arm flew up into the air, only to be snatched before it could hit the ground by someone in the back of the seething group, sparking a fight over the prize. Most of the group paused to feast, their grotesque faces and tangled hair becoming coated in red. 

However, three or four women, less mutated than the rest, perhaps placing them at the bottom of the pack hierarchy, couldn’t push their way past their fellows. Gnashing their teeth and snarling, they paced outside the group. Suddenly one of them caught sight of the children huddled by the garage. Head lowering and shoulders going back, she began stalking forward. Seeing the new prey, her hungry sisters followed, breaking into a trot. 

Knees going weak, Akane placed herself in front of the children. “Get into the garage!” she ordered stridently, proud that her voice barely wavered. Her eyes searched desperately for the hope of red hair.

From the corner of her eye, she saw the panicked guard drop Hiroko. He kicked Arata over and ran, disappearing through the outer gate where Sachi still stood with a wicked little smirk on her face. Akane wanted to punch Sachi in the face. She wished she could run too, but the children weren’t fast enough to get away and she refused to leave without them. 

Obeying Akane, the children disappeared into the garage. Hiroko pulled Arata to his feet and they ran inside together. Akane quickly backed up into the doorway, but couldn’t get the door to close. It was stuck, either latched open or broken. Despite knowing better, she couldn’t make her eyes leave the rapid approach of the terrifying feline warriors long enough to figure it out. 

“Ranma, I need you!” Akane bellowed, bracing herself for the fight to come as she barely hung onto her courage with the tips of her fingers. “Ranma!” She yanked desperately on all three of the spiritual cords. 

An accidental gulp of energy followed, firming Akane’s fists and cooling the flames of her terror. It gave her the strength to look away from the charging monsters to examine the door. A bolt attached the top corner of the door to the wall. Not only was it too tall for her to reach, but the hole in the metal meant that it required a key to unlatch. A long stick would probably work just as well to activate the mechanism, but she didn’t have time to find a stick to poke it or a box to stand on. 

Ear-splitting feline cries echoed through the courtyard. Akane tried to pretend they were her usual horde of teenage boys lusting after only a date, but it wasn’t working. Even if the ropy scars, contorted limbs, and unearthly yowls hadn’t made it too difficult, there were the dead bodies being eaten with gusto in the middle of the courtyard.

Suddenly Akane saw a streak of red shoot into the courtyard. It hit the cat warriors like a bowling ball, sending them scattering like pins. Akane cheered with almost hysterical relief as the group splintered, turning in on itself in confusion and rage as Ranko wove in and out of the other women, kicking, punching, and clawing. Despite their ferocity and power, they obviously didn’t have even a tenth of Ranma’s martial training. The redhead moved so swiftly and skillfully that the cat women began attacking each other, unsure where the hits were coming from. 

Nevertheless, they still greatly outnumbered Ranko. One of them got a hit in, sending Ranko slamming forward onto her knees. Shifting her weight to her toes, Akane was about to race forward to help. She couldn’t leave Ranko to fight this on her own.

But before Akane could take more than a single step, a thunderous voice snarled, “ _ Yamun _ !” 

The word exploded through the air and clung like oil, coating her ears and eyes and tongue. Akane only had a split-second to recognize the Okinawan word for  _ pain _ before every muscle in her body cramped simultaneously, sending her crashing to the ground. Lips peeling back soundlessly from her teeth, Akane writhed. Nothing existed but the pain arching like electrical shocks through her bones. 

An agony of distorted time later, she heard the voice growl, “ _ Nibui _ .” 

The pain disappeared, replaced by exhaustion. Stubbornly, Akane resisted. Her eyes wouldn’t open or her limbs move, but she refused to let her mind succumb to unconsciousness. Just when she was about to lose the battle, the unnatural urge to sleep disappeared.

“Get her up. Stay with her and keep her in line until I need her.” 

Hands gently but firmly flipped Akane over onto her front, pulling her wrists together behind her back. Using the grip on her arms, they pulled Akane to her feet. Forcing her eyes open, she found herself held securely by the male cat warrior. Her weak attempts to get free didn’t even make him adjust his stance. He just tightened his hold on her wrists and gave a soft, chiding growl.

Discouraged, she searched for Ranma, but everyone in the courtyard was unconscious. With a pang she saw that Ranko had managed to claw herself halfway to Akane before passing out. At least the movement of the redhead’s chest showed that Ranko was thankfully still alive. 

They were certainly a pitiful, useless pair, her and Ranma, neither able to rescue the other despite their best efforts.

Unable to avoid it any longer, Akane turned her attention to the Prophet. He stood with legs spread and arms crossed, his pure black eyes narrowed. Unlike his earlier handsome appearance, his skin now sagged on his bones, making his eyes sunken and his cheekbones protrude. 

“You need to recharge, my Lord,” Sachi said as she cautiously walked to the Prophet’s side. At his sharp look, she delicately added, “May I suggest the inept guards who allowed this to happen?”

Nostrils flaring, he cast his eyes around the courtyard. “Very well. Toss the girls back into their pen. Naughty children should be grounded. Put them in the pit. Then bring me the man who opened the inner gate and the one who was supposed to be guarding the children and my Chosen One.”

Anger and helplessness made Akane’s mouth turn sour as the children were herded to the far side of the compound and lowered by rope into the tarp covered pit. More soldiers scurried out with wheelbarrows and carts, loading up the unconscious cat women. Akane held her breath when they reached Ranko, fearing that they’d finally realize that the beautiful woman didn’t belong with the other freaks, but the soldiers didn’t seem to notice or care. They scooped Ranko up into the final cart with another cat woman and dumped them both behind the inner gate. Racing back out, they closed and barred the gate, then turned to the gruesome task of collecting the partially eaten body parts strewn around the courtyard. Rats were already swarming, trying to get a taste before the soldiers finished cleaning.

The two disgraced soldiers were brought forward and placed before the Prophet, bound hand and foot.  Without any fanfare, the cadaverous Prophet stepped forward, grabbed at the air in front of their bodies, and yanked. Their struggles and sobs stopped as if he’d flicked a switch.

Looking with her inner sight, Akane queasily realized that the Prophet had pulled their souls out completely, leaving only empty bodies behind, like shelled edamame. Opening his mouth unnervingly wide, the demon shoved in their souls, swallowing them down into the writhing, putrid shadows of his maw, a gateway to the demon plane. Even partially digested, the souls continued to pulse in terror and pain until the last wisp disappeared completely. 

Akane swallowed hard several times to keep the onigiri she’d eaten earlier from coming back up. She didn’t want to do anything that might call the Demon’s attention to her right now. The demon had cords leeching onto everyone in the courtyard, everyone but her. She’d give just about anything to keep it that way, to keep herself untainted this time.

“I don’t think you’ve learned your lesson,” the Prophet said, his face once more smooth, charismatic, and handsome. It was only when he turned to stare at Akane that she realized he’d been talking to her. “This is all your fault, but you probably don’t even care about the loss of those men. After all I did for you, removing my pitiful offspring and having Sachi tidy up your core, and this is the thanks I get.” He shook his head in disappointment.

From the main building two soldiers appeared, dragging a terrified, struggling woman between them. “No, please, leave me alone!” she wailed as her feet scrabbled uselessly along the ground. “No, no, no,” she hyperventilated. Seeing the Prophet waiting for her, she shrank back against the grip of her guards.

Seeing Akane’s expression of surprise and dismay, the Prophet grinned and stepped closer. “I took more than just children when I raided that village. I was going to wait, but you need a warning not to run away again, my dear, sweet, soft-hearted Akane.” He stroked her cheek, leaving behind a feeling of wiggling maggots. “Watch and remember.” 

“No, wait,” Akane blurted desperately. “I’m sorry! Please don’t hurt her. I’ll be better, I promise!” Akane jerked against the arms holding her, afraid of what was about to happen, desperate to stop it, but the cat man tightened his grip and pulled her off-balance against his chest with an iron grip, immobilizing her for the show to come. No matter how she struggled, she was powerless.

The Prophet walked over to the villager and cupped her face. The two soldiers released her and quickly stepped back. Eyes showing white around the edges, the woman stared up at the Prophet in frozen terror. His fingertips ran caressingly down her cheek and across the curves of her neck and shoulder. “My lovelies rarely thrive when I do it this way, but I can’t say I don’t enjoy it even more because of that. They are my slaves, my feline warriors. These cats will ensure my victory, twisting all my previous defeats at feline paws into delightful vengeance.”

He licked his lips. “Tell me, Akane, do you enjoy watching horror movies?” He gave Akane a sideways look. She held herself rigid and didn’t answer. “Hmm, probably not. I bet you hide your face behind a pillow during the scary parts and try not to scream.” His amused grin exposed the subtle sharpening of his teeth. “How sweet. Unfortunately, there are no pillows here, only monsters. This time, you’ll just have to watch, but please, feel free to scream. We don’t mind.” 

Stepping behind the shallowly breathing villager, he kept his eyes locked on Akane’s as he cupped his hand around the woman’s shoulder and dragged sharp fingertips down the inside of her arm. His nails left white lines down her darkly-tanned skin. They paused in the vulnerable crook of her elbow, fingering the protruding veins before scraping back up the inside of her arm. His fingers stopped on her bicep next to a large, strawberry colored birthmark, suddenly clamping down, making her flesh protrude around his tight fingers. She whimpered and jerked. The black of the Prophet’s eyes began glowing red, flashing gold flames when he tilted his head and smirked at Akane.  “Who knows, sweet little Akane, maybe you’ll even enjoy the show. She won’t, but I know I will.” 

A shadowed muzzle formed around the Prophet’s head. Sighing with anticipation, his jaw fell open, gaping wider and wider. Saliva dripped down his chin. His free hand grabbed a handful of the woman’s hair and wrenched it to the side, making her neck arch and strain. Snapping forward, he bit the empty air next to the woman’s neck and jerked, pointing his shadowy muzzle up to the sky. The woman gave a single, piercing scream and then went blank-eyed and limp, dropping to dangle from his hand like a broken doll. His throat bobbed as he swallowed with relish. Bite by bite, he chewed up her soul and gulped it down.  

Giving the nameless woman the respect of watching her murder, since there was nothing else Akane could do for her, Akane blinked past the tears streaming down her face and clenched her teeth on the rage boiling her blood. 

What felt like hours later, the demon finally stopped chewing and gave a satisfied sigh. Akane thought it was finally, blessedly over. But then he began coughing with a strange, raspy gurgle. Lifting his hand, he regurgitated something translucent and putrid into his cupped palm. He pressed it to the dangling woman’s neck and crammed it inside the savaged cavity he’d created when he’d ripped her soul open and devoured it. Her body convulsed once and resumed breathing. 

Leaning down, he licked the woman’s arched neck and sighed against the pulse thudding sluggishly against his tongue. His teeth indented against her flesh, but didn’t puncture. Reluctantly he leaned back and stood her on her feet. The woman swayed, but stayed standing. Her eyes looked broken, a tiny pocket of hell.

“Take her to the barn. If she survives the night, prep her for conversion,” he ordered languidly, wiping his glistening lips with the back of his fingers. “Feel free to play with her until then. The men have earned some fun.”

The soldiers shared a smirk and then saluted. “Your will be done, Prophet.” They escorted the now-docile woman away.

“As for you, sweet Akane,” the Prophet drawled, stepping up to smile down at Akane with too many teeth. 

Akane silently urged him to step just a little bit closer. Every muscle in her body sang with the desire to kill him. She’d never felt this violent before, but she knew she could do it. Right now, she didn’t really care about the consequences. 

She feared the demon and dying, but even more than that, she hated him. He was evil. Someone, somehow, had to get justice for his victims and stop him from hurting anyone else. The sooner the better. If she was very lucky, that person would be her. 

Unfortunately, he stopped advancing just out of reach. “I think we’ll give you a day or two in the pit with the children to think over things.” Tapping his chin, he nodded. “Yes, that will give me time to get everything in place for the birthing without having to worry about you running away again. No one escapes from the pit. That way we can make it a proper ceremony, with all of the trappings, just like in the movies. Won’t that be fun, my beauty?” He reached up and tucked a strand of her hair behind her ear, pulling back his fingers before she could bite them off. “It sounds absolutely  _ delicious _ to me, and in the end, I’m the only one who really matters.”

Staring straight into his eyes, Akane leaned forward. Voice shaking, she vowed, “I will see you dead.” 

The Prophet smiled. “My, how violent. I knew I liked you. What a magnificent mother you’ll make.” Winking, the Prophet waved his hand in dismissal and turned away. 

The cat man dragged her towards the pit in the empty field where they’d tossed the children. No matter how Akane snarled and struggled, his hold didn’t slacken. At the edge of the pit, Akane only had a second to glance down and realize that it looked almost fifteen feet deep. Then the cat man let go, placed a hand in her back, and shoved her over the edge. 

Akane screamed, only to jerk to a stop as he grabbed hold of her wrist. Body swinging wildly, she glared up him hatefully and tried to brace a foot against the wall. The cat man pulled her farther out so she couldn’t touch. As always, his expression looked completely calm.

Sucking in a breath, Akane decided she had nothing to lose. “Please, don’t do this. This is wrong. Help me,” Akane’s body swayed back and forth in his hold. The cat man looked completely unmoved. Lowering himself flat against the edge of the pit, he slowly lowered her body until his arm was fully extended and she dangled with almost ten feet of open air still beneath her. Then he let go. 

Young voices cried out in tandem with her own. Akane fell, hitting the ground hard. Relying on training and instincts, she rolled until she fetched up hard against the opposite wall. Gulping in a breath, she gingerly sat up. She felt bruised, but thankfully hadn’t broken anything. 

The children stood huddled against the wall out of the way. Akane pushed herself to her feet, only to see the cat man leap down into the deep pit, landing as gracefully as a bird. Stumbling back, Akane placed herself between him and the children. “Stay back,” she warned with empty bravado, knowing that in truth she couldn’t stop him from doing whatever he wanted to. He’d already proven that

Unconcerned, the cat man flopped down with his back to the wall. He crossed his long arms, closed his eyes, and dropped his chin to his chest. Within a minute, he began to snore.

Food came some time later. A soldier tossed in blankets when it started to get dark. Akane did her best to keep the children’s spirits up, wishing she had someone to do the same for her, wishing she had Ranma. That night, she and the children ended up sleeping in a large dogpile. 

More food arrived the next morning. Despite being shadowed by the overhead tarp, the pit still felt miserably hot and humid. It also started to smell. Akane did her best to keep everyone optimistic about escape, but knew that their best chance came from Ranma remembering his humanity and rescuing them. Unfortunately, the likelihood of that wasn’t high. 

The cat man dozed in his corner and didn’t seem to care about anything except for his share of food when it arrived. The only other exception came when they’d tried to build a human tower to reach the top of the pit. He’d hopped up, pushed them over brusquely, and then gone back to napping before they’d even picked themselves off the ground from their hard fall.

On the second day, the tarp peeled back and someone dropped in a ladder. Sachi’s face appeared a few seconds later, silhouetted against the painfully bright sky. “Time for fun! Everyone out,” she called cheerfully.

Akane started to go first, hoping it would give her a few seconds away from the cat man to fight back, maybe figure out a rescue, but Sachi stopped her. “Tsk tsk, Akane. Where are your manners? Children first, if you please.”

Grinding her teeth, Akane stomped down off the ladder and helped the children climb up first. By the time she was allowed to go, each child was tied in a line and watched over by a squad of soldiers. The cat man jumped out of the pit on Akane’s heels, too quickly for her to pull anything. No one tried to tie her up, but the cat man stood close enough that she could feel his breath on the back of her neck.

“Phew, you guys stink,” Sachi complained, holding her nose. “Definitely a bath first, or the Prophet won’t be able to properly enjoy the ceremony. Akane, you’re with me while the children get ready for the party elsewhere.”

“No. I don’t trust the soldiers with the children,” Akane refused firmly, stepping up to the older woman and raising her chin. “They’re all perverts and rapists.”

Pursing her lips, Sachi nodded and leaned forward. “It’s the influence of the rat demon. Evil impulses can’t be helped,” she whispered conspiratorially. Turning on her heel she took a step away and then stopped, swinging back. Snapping her fingers, she pointed at Akane, “But the last batch of babies were defective, weren’t they? We probably should keep you and the kids as pure as possible, just in case. After all, if this ceremony doesn’t work out, he’ll kill me. Literally.”

Sachi rocked back and forth on her heels and looked around at the soldiers, the gray in her hair clashing strangely with her attitude. “You heard that boys, no funny stuff. Get the kids washed, fed, and into place for the ceremony. If they’re scuffed, I’ll slice your throat.” 

Face softening, she went dreamy eyed. “I haven’t gotten to do that to anyone yet, but the Prophet promised that he’d let me have the next one of you that disobeyed. I had quite the amazing and...  _ intimate  _ dream last night, if you know what I mean. I pressed myself against a jerking body while the hot lifeblood pumped out with each beat of their heart, saturating my clothes and making me sticky, until the heart stopped altogether and nothing was left but meat. I think I finally found something worth giving up sex for.” The soldiers shuffled uneasily, bunching so the children ended up between them and Sachi.

Looking up from her memory, she smiled at them with fake sweetness. “If you screw up my ceremony, I will enjoy bathing in the ecstasy of your blood before our souls are devoured and sent to eternal torment together. Please keep that in mind if you start feeling tempted to do bad things.”

Dismissing the cowed soldiers, she threaded her arm through Akane’s and tugged her stiff body forward. “I love soaking with friends in the bathhouse, don’t you? Just remember, if you feel the urge to do something naughty, Akane, someone else will be bear the brunt of your punishment. We have lots of whipping boys and girls to choose from here, so be good.”

After a horribly awkward bath, Sachi fed her a light meal, see-sawing between bubbly chatter and monotone ranting that raised the hair on Akane’s arms. After eating, Akane had to sit through a period of surreal, incense-filled purification rituals that had absolutely no effect due to the corruption of the practitioner. She desperately wanted to reach out for Ranma, but feared what Sachi might discover if she did. No matter how Akane’s mind raced, she couldn’t find a way to escape without hurting the children. 

When Sachi finally finished chanting, she had Akane change into a textured white robe that looked almost like a costume. Heavier and fancier than a yukata, but not quite a kimono, Akane wasn’t sure if she was being dressed for her funeral or her wedding. Either thought made her feel sick. Even her anger wasn’t strong enough to comfort her this time.

At last, Sachi escorted Akane into the central meeting hall. Purple and black flags hung from the rafters and rough paintings of a triumphant Prophet surrounding by cheering armies of burly men and worshipful, mostly naked women decorated the walls. In front of the room, a long table covered in a pale gold fabric held an array of sharp weapons, ceramic bowls, and disturbing tools. Another low table stood in front of the first, but had been retrofitted with iron rings, open shackles, and several chains not longer than two or three feet.

“You look even lovelier than I expected in that, Akane,” the Prophet said as he came through the doorway trailed by the cat man and several soldiers. 

About to snap out a witty retort, Akane’s words became stuck in her throat as she saw that the last soldier to enter the room held a rope. The line of children followed him, but their eyes had gone unfocused and their mouths slack. She barely even recognized the blank-faced Arata. 

“What did you do to them?” Akane demanded, forcing herself to look for their souls, expecting to find gaping, empty caverns. But their souls looked normal, still pure and untainted. The soldiers tied the children to a line of rings on one wall and stepped away. The other wall had an identical setup, making Akane worry that there were even more children here she didn’t know about.

“They are merely drugged.” The Prophet folded back the cuffs of his robes and gave a teasing smile, “for now.”

Gesturing to the short table in front of the room, he declared, “Get up onto the altar. It’s time for the show to start, my lovely Akane.”

“I’d rather skip it, thanks,” she said drily, wondering if the benefit of being close enough to grab a dagger from the golden table outweighed the risk of being forced into the cuffs on their makeshift altar. She shifted into a fighting stance as several soldiers closed in around her. Looked like she was about to have to find out for herself.

“No no, this close to the main event, I’d really prefer not to bruise my Chosen One’s creamy skin,” the Prophet chided, stopping their advance. 

Looking over at the children, he pointed a finger at Hiroko. “I see an almost healed bruise on that one’s face. Freshen it up for me, will you?”

Before Akane could react, the cat man stepped up to the young girl and casually backhanded her across the face. Even in her drugged state, she whimpered, slumping dazedly in her chains. A trickle of blood ran down her chin.

Snarling, Akane darted forward and punched the cat man in the face as hard as she could, breaking his nose and sending him crashing backward. Emotion finally flickered into the cat man’s eyes, violence and anger, but before he could make good on the shadowed claws forming on his fingers, the Prophet snapped his fingers twice. The cat man stopped mid-lunge and lowered himself to a crouch.

“Stupid, Akane, very stupid,” the Prophet said with annoyance. “Get up here  _ now _ or I will do worse than just punch one of them.”

Glancing around, Akane saw a soldier pull out his dagger and put it to the throat of a child. The exits were blocked. All eyes looked unfriendly. She had no choice. 

Breathing hard, Akane Tendo forced her feet to walk to the front of the room and towards the Prophet. Before she could lunge past him to snatch up a dagger and bury it in his back, two soldiers seized her on either side. They forced her stiff body to kneel on the low altar, chaining her arms behind her back and her legs to the table. The table slanted forward slightly, forcing her to lean back to stay upright.

The Prophet placed a shallow metal tray on the altar in front of Akane. A damp, brownish-red cloth covered the tray. The familiar, coppery stench made her realize that the disgusting cloth was saturated with blood. 

Akane couldn’t take her eyes off of it. She wanted to touch it, which… was…  _ wrong _ . And familiar. Horribly familiar.

Whisking the bloody cloth off the tray, the Prophet uncovered the glistening black string that had hidden beneath. It sucked in the light, casting unnatural shadows instead of reflections across the shiny metal tray. Despair twisted Akane’s gut into knots.

“It took a lot of energy to create another one of these so soon,” the Prophet confided as he passed the bloody cloth over to Sachi. “I had to drain years of lifeforce from my men to do it, but you’re a special girl, one in a million. I don’t want to risk ruining you by waiting for the next one to be ready. You didn’t want to wait either, I can tell.”

With a start, Akane realized that she was straining towards the tray instead of away. She felt disgusted with herself. And scared. Wrenching her eyes away, she forced herself to control her breathing. She didn’t want to give him the satisfaction of hearing her sob. Eyes focusing on the children, she felt grateful that they were too drugged to realize what was about to happen to her. At least they would be spared.

The Prophet stepped up next to her and followed her gaze. "You are naturally maternal with the children, even after only a couple of days. Good. Perhaps it will comfort you to know that soon these will be your children in truth. You will become their mother when the demon spirits you'll incubate are born and take their bodies as hosts. You'll probably die in the process, but your spirit is so strong, you've already surprised me. If we're lucky, maybe you'll survive to birth a second liter." 

Everything in her rebelled in horror as she realized that the situation had just gotten worse. “I’d rather die,” Akane choked out. 

“Oh, don’t worry, you will. All of you humans will, but not before I get my use out of you first,” the Prophet said cheerfully. “Speaking of which,” turning to the soldier by the back door, he ordered, “bring in the food.” 

He turned back to Akane and leaned against the altar. “As soon as I heard that they’d caught you, I sent my men out shopping. My Sachi thinks that the problems with my other offspring may have stemmed from dirty blood, even before she got involved in trying to purify them.” He sent a dark look at the nearby woman, who bowed her head in meekness and fear. “It’s hard to gain power from corrupting something already full of evil. I barely made any strides when I first stuck to the soldiers. The souls of the women and the young, those are the key.” 

Making a throwaway gesture, he added, “Well, women like you. Not really Sachi. She was so internally conflicted that it was barely even fun to corrupt her. Don’t get me wrong, she had a lot of goodness, she just didn’t think she did, which makes for less shock, guilt, and agonizing than I prefer.” 

Once again, Akane really wanted to hurt him.

The Prophet continued, “When done right, the whole process from conception to birth shouldn’t take more than a few hours. As long as they have enough food to grow, that is. This time, I’m going to make sure things get done right.” 

The sound of returning feet in the corridor had him straightening up and stepping away from the altar. He watched Akane’s face with anticipation, waiting for her reaction. Seconds later, a line of drugged woman came shuffling into the room. The soldiers tied them up on the wall opposite the children, one woman for each child. 

Akane was determined not to give him whatever reaction he was looking for, but then the soldiers stepped away, revealing the woman at the end of the line across from Hiroko. Akane couldn’t contain the tortured cry of denial escaping her throat as she recognized her sister, Nabiki.

Looking back and forth between them, the Prophet smiled. “Let’s start with that one, shall we?”

* * *

 

Outside in the jungle, something disturbed a flock of brightly colored birds, sending them winging up into the sky, briefly silhouetted against the heavy, dark gray clouds. For a moment, the sweat-soaked guards abandoned their card game to examine the dark shadows beneath the jungle fronds. No breeze stirred the hot, humid air. A small deer abruptly bounded through the clearing in front of the compound and disappeared back into the trees on the other side. Fingers snapped to weapons.

A bolt of lightning cracked, lighting up the sky with white. Thunder rolled, rattling the wall around the Prophet’s compound. Rain began falling, first a few drops, then a deluge. Shouting and swearing, the guards quickly gathered up their cards and ducked inside to protect themselves from the heavy rain. With the prophet distracted by his ceremony, no one would notice a short dereliction of duty. 

Sheets of warm rain fell heavily on the temporarily empty wall. It covered the sound and sight of the small army emerging from the jungle and charging forward. Inside, the warm rain washed the courtyard clean of bloodstains and small footprints. The female warriors caged between the barn and barred inner wall began rising from the grass as the warm, wet rain soaked their clothes, washing the drugged powder from their skin. They looked towards the front of the compound and growled. 

In particular, the rain, wet and warm, fell on the small, miserable redhead huddled in the isolated space she’d fought and claimed as her own. The warm rain washed over her skin, transforming her into a tall, muscular, dark-haired man. A human who remembered everything that had happened as a cat. 

Rising from a crouch to stand upright on his feet for the first time in days, Ranma raised his clenched fists and shook them at the sky. Lightning cracked, followed by a boom of thunder that failed to drown out his bellow of rage. Dropping back to his heels, he cracked his neck from side to side as he flung off the black and purple jacket. Then he turned unerringly towards the compound’s main hall and began running.


	41. Fighting in the Courtyard & the Altar

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning for violence and death of major characters.

 

Pounding barefoot through the muddy puddles, Ranma didn’t bother stepping lightly. The splash at each stomp matched his mood. The cooling puddles slid across his curse like nails on a chalkboard, almost activating it, but the oppressive heat and soupy humidity kept him from tumbling over into a female form. 

Predatory cat soldiers watched through the downpour where they huddled against the circling wall and the side of the barn to shelter from the rain, but they knew better than to attack. The few scuffles he’d fought had always ended quickly and decisively with him on top. That he was now a man and not a female redhead didn’t matter. To them, Ranma still smelled and moved the same.

Despite the refuge the barn would offer, none of the feral women had gone inside. The barn wasn’t a shelter, it was the center of terror, the place where they were wrenched away from humanity and turned into cat monsters, their souls and bodies shattered beyond repair. Looking at their spirits made him want to howl at the violation and hurt somebody. 

Ranma knew how close he’d come to insanity with the cat fist, but even at its worst, the cat fist and his inner feline companion weren’t anything as bad as this. They would kill him if they could and not feel a moment of remorse. The demon hadn’t left them the ability to feel anything but aggression, hunger, and fear.

Reaching the nearest locked gate, Ranma bared his teeth, charged his palms with ki, and slapped them hard against the wood. The door blew back off its hinges. The metal bar flew off to disappear in the pounding rainstorm. 

No one came running to meet his fists. Ranma felt a moment of disappointment. Hitting someone would feel really good right now.

The demon and his purple smoke had defeated Ranma twice. He didn’t know if they’d taken Nabiki too or not. He’d have to figure that out later. Ranma would make sure Nabiki was safe, but first he had to find Akane. Nothing was more important than Akane.

All he knew was that Akane hadn’t been in the cabin when he’d woken up to shattered glass and suffocating gas. However, she had been there when he woke up in the cat fist in the barn here in the jungle. She’d saved him again and let herself be captured, despite the terror in her eyes. 

Ranma knew that she’d done it because she loved him. She gave into her greatest fear to protect him. The knowledge felt like a burning coal in his gut, a mix of extreme pain and hot gratification. When they got out of this, and it was a  _ when _ , not an if, he would make Akane promise to never sacrifice herself for him again. He didn’t care if it took threats or kisses, but he would make her promise to stay safe next time. 

The Akane in his mind blew him a raspberry, kissed his sour expression away, and then slapped his butt so hard it stung. Laughing at the expression on his face, she winked and tossed back her hair. Then she sashayed away. Even imaginary Akane refused to behave. Real Akane would never agree to his demands.

Her silky blue-black strands slid back as she walked, exposing the wire loop in her ear, the loop he’d placed there to bind them even tighter together. He’d given the earring to Akane to keep her safe, yes, but Ranma knew that the stab of pleasure he felt at seeing it also came from claiming one more piece of her for himself, a physical and spiritual proof of his possession, a physical proof she’d not just accepted, but reciprocated. 

When it came to Akane, there was no sating the possessive, hungry need that crouched in his soul, craving her, all of her. Ranma didn’t think she’d realized that ultimately, it wasn’t just about Akane belong to him, it was about Ranma belonging to her. He would seduce and insinuate himself inside her so tightly she’d never get him out, never want to get him out. She was everything he’d ever dreamed of and more. Akane was the home and love and permanence he’d always craved. 

He respected her. He loved her. And there was nothing he wouldn’t do to keep her. He knew it, he’d proved it already. Ranma knew he could never control her, she wouldn’t allow it and he’d probably be disappointed and bored if she did, but he would do everything in his power to imprint himself on her in every way physically or spiritually possible so that she’d never be able to get him out. 

The hard rain in the muddy courtyard made it hard to see very far. Ranma forced himself to slow down and think as he darted through the shadows along the inner wall. His eyes strained, searching for a door into the central building where he could feel Akane’s presence. 

Ranma had to be strategic if he wanted to win. He’d already proved weak to the demon lord’s gas. They’d bested him twice. He couldn’t just run around breaking through walls like Ryoga and Shampoo. His opponent wasn’t an idiot. Ranma couldn’t afford to screw up, not again, not with Akane on the line.

For the first time in longer than he could remember, his link to Akane felt supple and clear. It jumped eagerly to his touch, arching into his hand and practically purring. He could feel her exact location in the middle of that building. He just had to get there. He knew Akane could take care of herself, she’d proven that better than he had when it came to these guys, but the sooner he saw her, the better. 

His imagination boiled with fears of what could be happening to her. He’d go mad if he allowed them to the surface of his mind. He had to believe that she’d be okay until he got there. His sanity depended on it.

In his mind, a familiar black-furred shape appeared. It crouched by the cord of ki linking him to Akane. Ranma turned to him a flash. “This is all your fault. What were you thinking?! What happened to working with me? I thought we had a deal. If Akane’s hurt because of this, I’m going to kill you,” Ranma snarled, voice going guttural.

Slit-pupiled eyes narrowed. Uncoiling to his feet, the large black panther representing Ranma’s cat side shot him a bitter glare. “You were knocked out,  _ useless _ ,” the cat emphasized meanly, “I didn’t think the drugs would affect me like that. I thought I could take control of your body and save our future mate too, that just once, I could be the one lucky enough to have it all: be the hero enjoying the petting and licking and stay for fun and fish, instead of always getting kicked back to dormancy. I saw a chance and I took it. You’d’ve done the same.” 

Lashing his tail, the panther looked away. There was a pregnant pause as Ranma struggled with the words in his throat. Then the cat added lowly, “But I couldn’t help our future mate, you, or even myself. I was wrong.”

Hearing the underlying emotions in those words, Ranma’s bitter laugh escaped. “Yes, you  _ were _ wrong. You’re linked to me. That means you’re just as cursed as I am, idiot. We don’t get to have  _ luck _ . The only way we win is through skill, perseverance, and out-thinking the other guy.” 

Striding forward in his mental landscape as he simultaneously searched through the rainy courtyard for a door, Ranma roughly grabbed the scruff of the panther and lifted it until they were eye-to-eye. “Never again!” He shook the cat. “You need to remember that Akane is  _ mine _ . This body is mine. You and my girl-side may borrow my flesh, but at the end of the day it belongs to  _ me _ . Not you!” 

Ranma shook the cat again and then dropped him. “Next time you think to lock me down and steal my body, you better be saving Akane’s life, or so help me, I will find a way to suppress you so far that it will take a Hello Kitty convention to let you so much as twitch a whisker. I’ll tell Akane no more fish or scratchies  _ ever _ . Am I clear?”

“As an ice-cold pond,” the cat sneered. Jerking his muzzle towards the cord of ki stretching out towards Akane, the feline dodged Ranma’s angry fist and snapped haughtily, “Enough fighting, Akane needs us, perhaps more than she ever has before. We can’t afford to screw up again,  _ either _ of us.”

Ranma forced his fists to unclench. “For Akane sake, we need to work as one.”

“Agreed,” the cat growled. “Now hurry.”

The rain began to slacken, revealing a side door leading into the central building holding Akane. Flicking sodden hair out of his eyes, Ranma loped towards it. 

Unconscious reflexes had him abruptly jumping back, barely missing being smashed by a body falling from the sky. A black and purple clad soldier landed in front of him with a painful-sounding crunch. Ranma’s eyes darted up. On top of the outer wall, figures were locked in combat, the sound of their grunts and thuds muffled by the patter of rain. 

Before Ranma could choose how to react, the front gate exploded into chunks of wood. Turning, Ranma raised his fists defensively. A muscular figure appeared in the dust cloud where the gate used to be. The rain abruptly stopped and the man’s features snapped into view. 

Ranma blinked hard and swiped at the water and sweat dripping into his eyes, but the face beneath the sopping yellow bandana didn’t change. “Ryoga? For once, you have perfect timing. How’d you get here, man?” 

An expression of grim satisfaction flashed across the lost boy’s face. “I followed Nabiki’s gps signal.”

Automatically a scoff escaped Ranma’s throat. “You expect me to believe that you used a map and gps without getting lost?”

Ryoga scowled, “Yes!”

The familiar wrinkled face of Kazuya-san appeared at Ryoga’s back. The old monk who’d taught Ranma Martial Arts Geometry punched Ryoga in the ribs, making Ryoga flinch and stumble sideways. “Enough wagging your jaw with my doltish student. Move. I got you here, sonny. Now it’s time to destroy this demon and his army once and for all.” Trotting into the courtyard trailing younger monks, he sent Ranma a wave, bounced forward with a triangular step, and sent two soldiers in purple and black sprawling with a single swipe of his foot.

“We’re here to rescue you and Akane.” Ryoga scratched the back of his head sheepishly. “And Nabiki now too. It was taking you too long to rescue yourselves, so Nabiki called the monks, but then Nabiki’s master plan got messed up when the soldiers came and snatched her and some village women too instead of just taking the supplies she bugged with her gps thingy.” 

Glancing at the men and women streaming into the courtyard, Ranma recognized many of the faces from the Okinawan Martial Arts Geometry temples. Slapping Ryoga on the shoulder in thanks, Ranma looked around. “Make sure to avoid their purple gas and this should be a piece of cake. Akane’s inside the central building, probably with Nabiki. They have more soldiers, but they’re no match for all of us. C’mon!”

The two began running for the door into the central compound. Ranma didn’t worry about stealth anymore. If the door was locked, they’d knock it down. 

Out of the corner of his eye, Ranma saw a fallen soldier by the garage raise a shaky hand to his lips. The man blew on a wooden whistle concealed in his fingers, one long burst followed by two short. 

“There goes our surprise,” Ryoga shrugged, cracking his knuckles. 

Soldiers in black and purple spilled out of the central building. A quarter were shirtless or barefoot, but on seeing the invaders they managed to form a defensive formation blocking access to the central building. 

More annoyed than worried, Ranma prepared to knock them out of his way with extreme prejudice. Now that he had reinforcements, he didn’t worry about stealth. 

Abruptly the line of soldiers in purple and black froze in place. Seconds later, they dissolved into a retreating mob. One of monks by the gate cried out in fear. A swift glance back made Ranma’s stomach clench. 

A horde of female cat warriors spilled out of the hole he’d made in the inner gate. The whistle must have called out them to battle. Ferocious and insane, they attacked everyone in the courtyard indiscriminately. Monks and soldiers alike fell before their claws and teeth.

_ Hold on just a little longer, Akane. I’ll be there as soon as I can _ , Ranma promised silently as he and Ryoga turned to face this new threat. He had to give the monks a chance to regroup. Then he could break off. 

Eyes narrowed and limbs flashing, Ranma charged into the front lines and became engulfed by the battle. Surrounded on all sides, his focus narrowed. Flip, punch, punch, kick, slide, elbow, kick, duck, punch.

Unfortunately, the feline warriors were magically enhanced beyond the capabilities of most of the fighters. If there’d only been a handful, they might have prevailed, but there were more than ten of them and only he, Ryoga, and a couple of monks even managed to hit them, much less do enough damage to keep them down. Ranma’s most devastating attacks were limited because of the monks and potential damage to the building holding Akane. All his attempts to draw the cat warriors off into the open field on the side of the compound had failed. 

In the back of his mind, time kept ticking down. He needed to get to Akane. He needed to see her, to make sure she was okay. The longer this took, the higher the chance that someone inside might hurt her, that the demon might… but no, he couldn’t afford to think about that right now. If he let himself get that angry and afraid, he might lose sight of friend versus foe.

Frustrated, he grabbed a cat warrior by the leg, heaved her up, and threw her hard into the side of the garage. The wall splintered. She crashed through the boards and stayed down, one foot dangling limply out of the hole. 

As he turned away, a foot rammed into his jaw. Ranma stumbled sideways. He punched out at where the kick came from, only scoring a glancing blow. Distracted and still reeling, he missed the rush of foes from behind until it was too late. Two cat women piled onto his back with yowls and screams, grabbing his arms and sending him smashing face first into the mud. His cheek throbbed and his curse skittered across his skin. He shrunk and became female.

Rearing back, Ranko dislodged one of them with a backwards headbutt, only to have another fighter run up and kick him in the side. Breath exploded from her body. Ranma’s lungs seized. Eyes watering, she twisted her head and bit at the nearest arm holding her down. The hold loosened, but then grotesque jaws snapped at her neck. Ranma barely jerked out of the way of getting her throat torn out. Sharp teeth scoured down the side of her neck and several strands of red hair fell to the mud. 

Dodging claws, Ranma twisted, hitting the face of the woman bracing her right shoulder. The cat woman let go with a gurgle and fell back. Ranma’s leg snapped out, catching the woman in front in the face at the same time her elbow drove down, snapping the leg of the woman leaning on her left arm. Free once more, she leapt to his feet and danced back, forcing her bruised diaphragm to pull in the air her body needed. 

Instead of staying down, two of the cat women dragged themselves back to their feet. The one with scars from having her face half-clawed off gestured at Ranma sharply with fingers extended, sending five blades of energy sizzling through the air. Ranma flipped out of the way and landed in a crouch. 

Mind churning, Ranma ran over several strategies. Ranma wanted to blast them all with a burst of ki, but a trio of young female monks jumped in the way. They ran forward to attack the cat soldiers, putting themselves in the line of fire. 

One of the monks kicked a bucket at the soldiers. A cat woman shredded it with her claws. The splash of tepid water thudded over Ranma’s neck and shoulder. The curse crawled uncomfortably across Ranma’s skin and sluggishly turned him male, the water just barely warm enough to activate it. Irritated with the world, Ranma flicked his now black hair over his shoulder.

In the distance, he heard a new wave of feline yowling. It didn’t come from the warriors in the courtyard. Ranma drove his elbow into the back of a cat warrior’s neck, knocking her out. He still felt angry. 

_ He needed to get to Akane! _

Were there more of the demon’s twisted cat warriors stabled somewhere else in the compound? They were barely holding their own against the ones here. Things weren’t looking good. 

* * *

 

Inside the swealtering compound, Akane stared helplessly at her sister and fought futilely against the chains holding her bound on top of the altar. Sweat plastered her white robe to the skin of her back and sides. Soldiers shut the doors, trapping them all inside the hall. 

_ It wasn’t fair! Nabiki wasn’t supposed to be here, she’s supposed to be safe! _ Akane had already saved her sister from anaphylactic shock, done her best to keep her away from this place and any part of the deadly prophecy hanging over Akane’s head, the one that said that Akane would have to let someone she loved die. It wasn’t supposed to happen like this. 

Or maybe it was, but that didn’t mean Akane had to give into it.  _ Why did she have to be the hero? Couldn’t someone else save the day? Make the sacrifice?  _ No matter how irritating, mercenary, and manipulative her sister could sometimes be, at the end of the day, Nabiki was family. She loved Akane just as much as Akane loved her. These last few weeks, Nabiki’s actions had proven it. Akane didn’t think she could let her sister die, no matter what Miaka’s prophecy said. 

_ What was she going to do? _

The Prophet stepped around the altar, his brilliantly colored bugata not showing a drop of sweat or grime. “Sachi, change of plans. You get to do the knifework for the ceremony after all.” It made Akane mad that she still found his face so handsome, even after experiencing his evil. 

Scowling over his shoulder at the female monk across the room, the Prophet tossed a small knife petulantly onto the makeshift altar and stalked behind Akane out of sight, muttering under his breath. The knife bounced twice and settled next to Akane’s hip, a cold line of metal against the thin fabric of her white robe. 

Seconds later he walked back into view and gestured sharply at the cat man, whose chin and chest was liberally streaked with red blood after Akane’s earlier punch had broken his nose. “I fear the taste of his own blood has quite ruined my cat’s feeble self control. If I let him do it, he’ll probably just kill her and ruin everything.” 

Akane accidentally met the cat man’s eyes and saw a maelstrom of insanity. He kept licking his lips, over and over. His usual calm expression had disappeared completely, replaced by twitching muscles and heaving lungs. He rather looked like he wanted to rip off Akane’s arms and use them to club her to death, then eat her entrails. 

Akane swallowed hard and called up anger to mask her fear. She had to do something now or things would go from bad to worse. Much worse. Her mind spun with a desperate plan. Glancing at the knife by her hip out of the corner of her eye, she quickly flicked her eyes away. Her body subtly twisted, fingers strained against her chains and towards the knife by her hip. 

Turning to the vibrating cat man, the Prophet ordered ordered, “Stand against the wall and don’t move unless I order you otherwise. Sachi, do try to restrain yourself better when her blood starts to flow.”

Akane glared at the demon in front of her and tossed her hair back from her sweaty forehead, acting like she wasn’t secretly terrified and on the cusp of breaking down. “You won’t get away with this, you ugly, evil rat! You’re nothing! Just a small, weak animal who’ll soon be eaten.” She knew the words were weak and cliche, but she couldn’t think of anything clever to say. She just had to keep his distracted from her stretching fingers. “The rat never wins against the cat. Everyone knows that, and neither will you!” 

The demon Prophet’s nostrils flared with temper and annoyance. “Hold your tongue, girl,” he snapped his fingers in the air. Akane braced herself, but no magic flicked out to bite into her mind and body. 

Tossing her head again, Akane sneered. The tip of her finger brush against the cool metal of the knife. She almost had it. Then she’d make them sorry. 

“I’m going to see you destroyed like the pathetic little rodent you are, mark my wo—” Hands reached out from behind and forced a cloth gag into Akane’s mouth, roughly cinching it tight around her head. “— _ MMph mmPH _ !” It pressed suffocatingly against her tongue and bit painfully into her cheeks. 

Sachi came out from behind Akane and bowed her head. The silver of her rough hair caught in the light. “It would be my pleasure to wield your blade, my Lord.”  

Akane’s straining fingers finally touched metal. The knife scraped across the table and into her palm, but before her hand could close, Sachi leapt forward. The monk reached out and snatched away the knife. The blade sliced a line of sharp pain along Akane’s thumb. Turning the knife, Sachi rapped Akane’s knuckles punishingly hard with the flat of the blade, making her fingers spasm in pain. “Naughty naughty,” the former monk scolded lightly into Akane’s ear. 

Breathing heavily against her gag, Akane felt the edges of her vision go white. At that moment, she wanted to hit Sachi so badly she could practically feel the impact of the woman’s jaw against her fist. She wanted to make the other woman bleed.

A horribly unpleasant pungent smell filled the room along with the sound of liquid pouring out of a bottle. “Humans are so annoying,” the demon grumbled. Akane wished she could see what the Prophet was doing at the table behind her back instead of just glaring at Sachi’s smug face. She hated having an enemy at her back, the way sweat beaded on her spine and her shoulders itched, but her body couldn’t turn enough to see what he was doing. They’d tied her arms together behind her back and secured the shackles to a ring in the table. Each of her legs was also fastened to a seperate ring. Her movement was too limited. 

Nevertheless, Akane was a martial artist in the school of Anything Goes. They may have her bound and gagged, but as long as she breathed, she would fight. Limited movement just meant she had to make sure what little movement she had knocked them down hard and kept them down long enough for her to escape or for Ranma to come. Ranma would always come for her. They hadn’t won yet, no matter what things looked like right now. 

And she’d keep telling herself that until it came true.

The Prophet’s complaints to Sachi continued as the sound of a jar being unscrewed reached Akane’s ears. “If I didn’t need my cat warriors to counter my ancient enemies, I’d kill the lot of them and save myself the aggravation. I hate cats more than humans. You know that he’s the only male to ever survived the fusion process? I should probably just put him down. Sure, he doesn’t slaughter my soldiers when I turn him on my enemies, but that’s a minor annoyance in the grand scheme of things. There’s something to be said for unbridled violence.”

Walking back around in front of Akane, the Prophet flicked his fingernail against the metal tray below her knees that she’d somehow managed to successfully ignore. She hadn’t allowed herself to look at it, even to think about it, but with that single ting of sound, he’d destroyed her detachment. “But one servant wielding a knife is very like another in the grand scheme of things, even if I’d planned this the other way. Let’s begin, shall we? It’s time to show you, little Akane, that you are the prey here. You are the one who will be destroyed. I would bite out your tongue for your insults, but then I would miss out on your delicious screams later.”

Tucking a strand of hair behind her ear, he made her flesh crawl and the loop of her earring burn against her skin. “I want you to think about what is about to happen, the worst thing you can imagine.” Leaning back, let his black eyes drift down the arch of her restrained body like a slimy touch. “I promise you, the reality will be worse.” Returning to her eyes, he smirked and licked his lips. His gaze felt sexual, not only in the normal sense but also in that he’d get pleasure from her pain, that the more she suffered, the more he’d enjoy it. 

Akane’s stomach cramped and her heart raced. A tremor rocked her frame, but she refused to let loose the scream building in her throat. Terror beat against her self-control like a million moths fluttering around a candle, the flap of those powdery wings threatening to blow out her small flame of stubborn courage. Clenching her muscles, she halted the betraying shiver and forced herself stiff within the bite of her chains.

Raising his hands, the Prophet began hissing sibilantly. His fingers wove through the air in intricate patterns. The dissonant sounds raised the hair on Akane’s arms and vibrated painfully through her bones. Not even the storm, which rattled and howled outside the building like an invading army, could muffle it. 

Reaching down, the Prophet placed his fingers on the top of Akane’s thighs. Tears sprang to her eyes. Stomach heaving, she could do nothing but endure as he dragged them slowly down her legs and over her knees. His fingers left stinging lines of pain on her skin. Akane looked down to see that her white robe was sliced through, falling open to reveal her skin, golden brown against the bright white of the robe. His nails had left red lines down her skin, but none of them beaded with blood. Not yet, at least. 

Cupping her shoulders, he grabbed handfuls of her sleeves and abruptly pulled. The wooden altar creaked as she jerked forward against her chains, crying out in shock and pain. The fabric twisted bruisingly into her flesh before the seam at the shoulders finally tore free with a scream of tortured thread. Sachi moved forward, cutting off the remaining scraps of Akane’s sleeves with the knife, gathered them up, and then stepped back again, leaving her arms bare but for the manacles.

The Prophet once more began hissing and squeaking, but the sound didn’t have the same vibration as before. Sweat broke out on his face. His breathing became labored. Fingers trembling, he brought them down to rest on top of the glistening black string. It pulsed at his touch, a rhythmic motion, undulating round and round and round the string.

The already humid air became even thicker and heavier. It pressed down on Akane’s shoulders and made each breath through the gag a battle to be fought and won. Chest heaving, Akane began rocking back and forth, back and forth. 

From the corner of her eye, she could see rats crawling out of holes in the walls, belly’s scraping the floor and heads lowered, until they massed behind the throne-like chair placed across from her on the other side of the room. The scent of the wet rodents became almost overwhelmingly nauseating. She wanted to vomit. Akane tried to pant shallowly around the gag in her mouth as she rocked back and forth on the wooden altar. She couldn’t afford to throw up. With the gag blocking her mouth and her nose filling with snot from repressed tears, she could choke to death on her own vomit. 

Arms trembling, the Prophet staggered, his chanting falling silent as he braced himself on the altar in front of Akane. Leaning down, he licked across the pulsing black string with his unnaturally large, scarlet tongue. His saliva sizzled as it dripped onto the tray. 

Akane blinked and the Prophet’s handsome face distorted, replaced by the demon. His unnaturally handsome human features completely dissolved, the skin and muscles shrunken onto the bones of his skull like heated plastic wrap. A monstrous rodent’s head superimposed itself like smoke over his now-hideous features. 

Those black on black eyes swept past Akane to focus on Sachi. Long, skeletal fingers picked up the string. At his touch, it stopped throbbing. The Prophet pushed off the altar to stand unsteadily on his feet. 

Sachi took the tray away and he carefully placed the black string on the sloped altar just in front of Akane’s knees. Reaching out, his clawed hands bunched the sliced fabric of her white robes high on her thighs, tucking it into place so it didn’t fall back down. Akane quivered in helpless rage and fear.

Unexpectedly he reached up and tapped her cheek. Akane’s eyes jerked up to meet his black on black gaze. The shadowy rat head licked its chops. “I look forward to wallowing in your pain,” he said, cupping her chin.

Pulling on the shreds of her pride, Akane shook off his fingers and glared, hoping he could read the murderous thoughts in her eyes instead of the underlying terror. From his smile, she felt like she’d failed.

Turning, the Prophet made his way to the throne across from the altar and sat down heavily. A soldier brought him a steaming goblet. He drained it down and then gestured to Sachi “Remember to be careful with my Chosen One during the cuts. I want to try and breed her twice if she can survive it.” 

“Of course, my Lord,” Sachi moved forward, her footsteps quick with excitement. Without further warning, the small knife in her hand flashed down along Akane’s bare outer thigh. It was so quick that it took Akane a moment to realize that she’d been cut. A bright line of red appeared, running from the hem of her torn white robe to the crease of her knee. Then the hot pain hit and blood began pouring from the wound in red rivulets. The knife flashed again and sliced down Akane’s arm.

Eyes tearing, body screaming, Akane sucked in hard breaths. She actually felt grateful for her gag, because it muffled her whimpers of pain. The table creaked as Akane jerked hard against her chains. A subtle smile curved Sachi’s lips, deepening the wrinkles around her mouth and eyes. Not rushing, the corrupted monk sauntered around the altar and slowly repeated the deep cuts along Akane’s other side.

Blood seeped out of the gashes on Akane’s arms and legs. It dripped onto the altar and formed rivulets and streams, sliding down the slant of the wood and staining the wood grain as it began pooling around the black string. Tears streamed down Akane’s face and soaked the gag digging cruelly into her cheeks. 

However, even worse than the physical pain was the mental compulsion to give in. The necklace tasted her blood and she was lost. Akane found herself straining forward instead of away, caught by the allure of the black string. She didn’t have the strength to fight the urge to get as close to it as possible. It needed her, a demanding beat pulsing along the edges of her mind. She wanted to give it her blood. Akane rocked from side to side and front to back, trying to find the slack to reach out and touch the necklace, to give it even more.

Between one second and the next, the puddle of her blood rippled outward in a ring of waves, as if a pebble had been dropped in the center. Then the pull reversed and her blood slurped into the black string, leaving the wood of the altar completely dry. Akane robotically rocked harder. A distant voice growled at her to look away, but she couldn’t even perform that small bit of defiance. The pull of the dark magic was too strong. All she could do was rock.

It felt like each drop of her blood was leaping off her skin and speeding down the altar like a woman running to embrace a midnight lover. Slowly but surely, her blood swelled into spheres of garnet along the string. Akane blinked, blinked again. Rocked back and forth. Time skipped strangely, went hazy, and then she blinked, focused her eyes, and saw a necklace full of glistening, blood-red pearls. 

Woozy, it took her too long to realize that as her blood seeped out, corruption had been seeping in to replace it. She hadn’t thought to mount a spiritual defense. Putrid tendrils of demonic energy crawled along her soul, forcing their way in and attaching themselves to her core like leeches. The cords attaching her to Ranma tried to fight back, their growls and cries frantic and harsh, but there were too many demonic tendrils. The evil was too strong and she was too weak. 

Weak. Useless. As good as dead.

* * *

 

Thoughts going flat and cold, Ranma had all but decided to just knock everyone out indiscriminately and ask for forgiveness later. They would heal. Akane would disapprove, she’d be angry if he hurt the monks, but as long as he could get her out of here safely, he would gladly put up with her scolding. 

A soldier in black and purple ran in front of Ranma, gun aimed at a knot of monks squaring off against a cat woman with brutally short black hair and a face like melted wax. Before the soldier could fire off a shot, Ranma sliced the gun in half with a claw of ki. As the man turned to him with a stupefied expression, Ranma backhanded him into unconsciousness. 

Suddenly a chorus of growls flooded through the courtyard with a sound like thunder, the arrival of what he’d heard approaching earlier. Bracing himself, Ranma scanned for new enemies. Not at the gate, or in the barnyard, but higher. 

Jerking his head up, he looked up at the rocky cliff above the compound, covered with trailing vines and temporary waterfalls. The rim rippled, resolving into a dark line of fur and sharp claws. As if in slow motion, an army of cats boiled over the edge, through the dripping fronds and down the steep cliff face. Somehow their paws found purchase on the wet stone, jumping and leaping in furious purpose as they spilled into the courtyard. 

Ranma’s mind convulsed, but miraculously his feet stayed rooted and his mind stayed sane. Brown stripes and flashing eyes resolved themselves into an army of Iriomote cats, more than fifty, maybe even a hundred. It must be almost the entire population on the Island. 

The sight of all those cats should have terrified him, should have made him jump back shrieking, even with the strides he’d made against his phobia in the last few months, but instead, his emotions felt muffled and distant. For once, his cat side had actually pulled through. To find and save Akane right now, especially if that purple gas appeared again, they needed Ranma’s human cunning, not the cat’s.

Charging forward, the Iriomote cats streamed past the regular soldiers and monks in the courtyard and fell upon the female cat warriors. In return, the female cat warriors dropped everything, turning to the Iriomote cats with screams of primal recognition. Hatred dripping from their jaws, the two groups collided with a cacophony of feline cries and female shrieks. 

The soldiers in black and purple used the distraction to rally, reforming in ragged squads. Ranma’s eyes zeroed in on a shouting officer in purple. The man blew once sharply on the whistle around his neck as he backed towards the central building with his men. The demon’s soldiers were barely holding it together. Take out their leaders, and they’d cut and run so he wouldn’t have to worry about them coming up on his back on the way out.

Ranma had only taken a single step forward when he felt a sharp jolt from his cat side, breaking through his focus. “What is it now?” Ranma snapped, wondering if the fickle cat was about to betray him once again and kick his human consciousness into the abyss.

Voice stripped raw, his cat side answered with barely suppressed panic. “Hurry! It’s Akane. She’s bleeding. Badly. Hurry!”

* * *

 

“Oh yes, she’s delicious, such a pure heart beating so frantically against my corruption, such despair and so much power….” The Prophet’s words snapped through Akane’s daze, snapping her gaze away from the red necklace and up to his face. His long, scarlet tongue licked along his shadowy muzzle. Skeletal fingers rubbed up and down the arms of his throne. “Feed my pearls a prisoner so they don’t take too much from her. I need her to survive the birth. Our children will devour the world for me. I can feel it.” He snapped his fingers demandingly and gestured.

Two soldiers moved towards the women tied up against the wall, further breaking through Akane’s daze. Her body rocked faster. Glancing over, she noticed that the female prisoners looked almost lucid. At some point their drugged stupor had turned into frozen terror. 

Nascent demonic energy crept deeper into Akane, wiggling into the energy feeding her womb, preparing to carve themselves a space to settle down and grow until she birthed a litter of monsters. Everything in Akane bucked against the violation. She forced her sluggish mind to fight back.

Unexpectedly, the earring in Akane’s ear went ice cold. A line of ki cut across her soul like ice cracking on the surface of a frozen lake. The taste of metal and clay slid across her tongue and down her throat. Magic howled. Energy surged and frothed, devoured. 

The earring looped through her tragus bound her life energy. It was primitive and small, but greedy. It was made to ensure that only Ranma could impregnate her. No one else. No other man and no demon. 

The energy abruptly froze. Awed, Akane felt the wiggling tendrils of demonic energy in her core become sheathed in ice and forced to stillness. Habit built over weeks of defensive weeding took over and Akane’s mind struck out, catalogued the filaments of dark energy and tracing them back to their source. 

Unlike every time before, the magic of the earring somehow made the previously shadowed demonic cords stand out to her spiritual sight. She tracked them back to the necklace of fetal demons and then across the room to the adult demon on the throne. For a split second, she could see how the necklace connected to where the demon crouched inside the human shell. To create the beads holding his offspring, he’d had to rip away bits of his core, leaving small gaps in the weave controlling the human he possessed, vulnerable spaces in his shielding.

Akane wondered if she could unravel the edges of those holes and make them wider. For weeks she’d been focused on nothing else but unravelling his ties. She didn’t have the energy or knowledge to destroy the demon, but she could make make his control of his human host shaky enough to weaken him.

Making her will into a blade, Akane grabbed a filament and began to follow it. But before she could even get out of her own body, the filament collapsed into snow, dropping her back down into her core. Akane felt disoriented and frustrated. The center of her soul had been scoured as clean as a windswept, frozen tundra, but the path into the demon’s weakness had also disappeared.

The demon jerked and met Akane’s eyes with shock. Black eyes narrowing in anger, he leaned forward. Demonic threads bombarded Akane from every side. Gagging, Akane closed her eyes and swallowed hard as corruption wiggled down from above and up from below her, trying to invade her core. 

Again the earring spat sharp icicles, sheering them off. However, the earring was pure force. The demonic tendrils held intelligence. Learning and adapting, they slunk around her edges, feeling around her torso, looking for a way to dig deeper, to get inside and start to grow. Where they clung she felt herself beginning to burn, a blistering along her ki. It surrounded her, bubbling across her defences.

Opening watering eyes, Akane saw two soldiers grab Nabiki. They cut her sister loose from the wall. The danger forced Akane to focus past the inner and outer pain, forced her to ignore the compulsion of the necklace. She couldn’t let them hurt her sister.

Instead of going along meekly, Nabiki proved herself a true Tendo. Two steps away from the wall, she twisted and rammed her knee between the legs of the first soldier. Not expecting resistance, he clutched himself and fell to the ground with a pained whimper. 

Unfortunately, his partner reacted more quickly, blocking Nabiki’s follow-up jab. Grabbing her wrist, he wrenched her arm forward and forced it behind her back. Nabiki cried out and kicked back at his shins. He cursed, but didn’t let go, yanking her arm higher. 

Another soldier rushed over. Nabiki went limp and then rammed her elbow into the guard’s side. Breath flying out of his mouth, he folded over. The nearest prisoner kicked him in the head. He staggered into the line of prisoners. In the tangle of flailing limbs, Nabiki wiggled free. 

Akane rocked harder on the altar, silently cheering her sister on. The prisoners tied against the wall began to scream and cry, some cowering away from the fight while others kicked out at nearby soldiers and did their best to fight back. The cat man quivered against the wall as if desperate to leap forward, but without orders from the demon, he stayed put.

Unfortunately, it didn’t last long. After a short scuffle, the soldiers caught Nabiki and yanked her roughly between them. In the bedlam, one of the female prisoners shrieked so loudly it sounded like a whistle. 

The Prophet frowned and turned to look at the door, but then Sachi spoke over the tumult, capturing his attention. “Not to worry. I told you, my Lord. The drugs wore off just in time for the bloodletting. As long as your men actually do their jobs, the villagers will make the perfect food for your growing children, terrified and wriggling.”

“Hmm, yes,” the Prophet nodded, falling back into his throne with a sour look on his face. His colorful bugata seemed out of place in this room of blood and pain, hanging strangely on his skeletal frame. His movements still looked shaky after whatever he’d done with the necklace, but who knew how long that weakness would last.

Akane knew she couldn’t break the metal chains tying her to this altar. Every interaction she’d had with the demon’s forces had proven that, whether to save others or herself, her brute strength wasn’t enough to snap steel. Strength wasn’t enough. 

However, Akane Tendo wasn’t just strong, she was smart and very, very stubborn. The demon had made two mistakes. They’d secured her chains to a wooden altar and taken their time with the ceremony to draw out her pain. Then they’d threatened her sister.

Akane had grown up breaking bricks and wooden boards for fun. No wooden altar would withstand her efforts for long, especially since she’d been gradually working loose the metal pins securing her to the wood with her constant rocking. She could feel the three metal loops attaching her to the table wobbling with each wrench of her body back and forth.

As the two soldiers dragged Nabiki’s struggling body to the altar, Sachi lifted the dagger. It was still red with Akane’s blood. “Hold her head over the necklace so the string of pearls can feed on the blood after I cut her throat,” Sachi ordered, anticipation making her voice tremble and her eyes bright. “I’ve been looking forward to this part the most.”

Too caught up in the sacrifice about to take place, everyone had stopped paying attention to Akane. She’d already been bound and sliced. Her blood still dripped and she looked defeated.

Instead, everyone watched Nabiki and the bloody knife with sick anticipation. The soldiers, angry at her defiance, shoved Nabiki hard against the altar in front of Akane. Easily controlling her struggles, they roughly forced her to bend, suspending Nabiki’s pale throat over the red beads. 

Looking down at the necklace, Nabiki’s struggles abruptly stopped. The guards exchanged wicked grins. Eyelids going heavy, Nabiki abruptly strained forward instead of away, unbalancing the soldiers.

“Hold her steady,” Sachi snapped, roughly grabbing a handful of Nabiki’s hair and arching back her neck to bare her throat for the cut, the cut that would spill Nabiki’s lifeblood onto the necklace below to feed the demon’s offspring. 

_ No.  _ Everything inside Akane rebelled. They would not kill her sister. They would NOT.

As the corrupt monk lifted her knife, Akane rocked back on her heels so hard that her body arched completely backwards and her hair brushed her toes. Then she surged back upright with all of her considerable stubbornness and strength. Wood splintered. Akane’s chained arms tore free from the table. 

The move hadn’t broken her legs free, nor snapped the metal cuffs binding her wrists together behind her back, but it didn’t matter. Akane would free her sister and make them  _ hurt _ . Leading with her shoulder, Akane screamed against her gag and slammed into Sachi. 

Not expecting the blow, Sachi cried out and toppled sideways. As she fell, her outflung knife slashed across the arms of the two men restraining Nabiki, biting deeply. Their blood splattered onto the pearls on the altar and sucked into the necklace. The air became unnaturally heavy with anticipation.

The soldiers cried out and scrambled backwards. Dropping Nabiki, they turned to run, terror on their faces. As Nabiki fell, she hit the edge of the altar and fall to the ground. Akane saw her eel beneath the table and heard her scuttle towards the back wall. 

The soldiers barely made it five steps before the demonic power of the necklace surged through the room. It lashed out at the men, dropping them to their hands and knees screaming. Their shrieks built as the necklace latched onto the source of new blood and sucked it out of their bodies in red ropes and ribbons that flew through the air and into the pulsing red beads. In less than a minute, the ropes of blood coming out of the two soldiers thinned to small threads. Their shrieks dimmed to sobs, then to silence. The last squirts of blood flew through the air. Then their bodies collapsed into two dry husks. 

Around the room the prisoners screamed and sobbed, joined by cowering soldiers in the corners, overcome by the fate of their comrades. Instead of interfering, the demon seemed distracted by whatever was happening with the necklace. Chin down, he clutched the edges of his chair and shook, eyes closed and teeth c.en clenched. 

Arms still tied behind her back and ankles strapped to the table, Akane desperately wrenched at her bonds as Sachi staggered to her feet against the edge of the altar, the only person willing to come close to the hungry necklace and Akane. 

“You ruined it,” the corrupted monk shrieked. She threw a sloppy punch at Akane. Twisting so the blow only glanced across her side, Akane grunted, let Sachi overextend, and then body-slammed Sachi again. The monk jolted back and then lunged forward with a snarl. Akane caught Sachi in the face with her elbow and smashed the woman’s head against the altar with a very satisfying smack. 

Taking a chance, Akane arched her body backwards, blindly grabbed the shackle on her right ankle, and pulled hard. Muscles straining and vision full of black spots, she felt her fingers becoming slippery as blood pumped out of cuts that had barely begun to clot. Right before her fingers lost their grip, the shackle ripped out of the table with a splintering crack. Akane surged back upright.

Unfortunately, those few seconds had given Sachi a chance to recover. Murder in her eyes, Sachi lunged at Akane with dagger raised. Unable to block, Akane snapped her head forward, bringing her forehead down hard on Sachi’s already swelling cheek with a crack. The monk fell backwards with an agonized cry, clutching at her face. Her other hand swung the knife, which sliced glancingly across Akane’s cheek and shoulder before the monk fell to the floor

Ignoring the brightly burning pain, Akane frantically tried to free her other ankle. The gag around her mouth slipped free, sliced open by the knife. Sucking in a lungful of air, Akane wrenched back and forth desperately. The final ring keeping her left ankle locked to the altar wiggled, but wouldn’t break free. Akane tried harder.

Something swung towards her face, but by the time she saw it, it was too late to dodge. The hilt of Sachi’s dagger slammed into Akane’s mouth like a hammer. White lightning burst across her head. For a moment, nothing existed but the pain. Akane fell, barely wrenching her body to the side before she landed on top of the now-pink necklace of beads. Somehow, she instinctively knew that would be a fatal mistake. 

However, that single glance at the necklace had once more ensnared her thoughts. Deep down in her soul, something wailed and gnashed its teeth. Lying limp across the altar, Akane’s breath slowed. The necklace rested mere inches from her face.

Blood filled her mouth and slicked her lips and chin. If she could have, she’d have made the wounds wider, made her blood flow more quickly to stream off her chin and feed the necklace below. The slowly forming shapes in those blush pink beads were hungry. They needed more food and Akane had to give it to them. She couldn’t deny the urge as the beads morphed into luscious, glistening white pearls.

Suddenly a hand fisted in the hair at Akane’s nape. It wrenched Akane’s head back, using the hold to pull her body up onto her knees. The table rocked and hair ripped from her tortured scalp. Her sight filled with cobwebbed wooden planks bracing the ceiling instead of pale pearls. The harsh pull of her hair made her skull scream and her eyes sting. The enthrallment cracked as her ears filled with the sound of the beads rolling off the altar and falling to the floor. Akane sucked in a wet breath. That ceiling was the most beautiful thing she’d ever seen. 

Then the edge of a sharp blade touched Akane’s neck and pressed lightly, sending a dribble of blood down her skin. “That was very stupid, Akane,” Sachi growled, half her face swelling with what looked like a broken cheekbone. Her one good eye, bloodshot, glared hatefully into Akane’s. Using her hold on Akane’s hair, Sachi yanked Akane’s head back even farther, until Akane could barely breathe. It felt like her spine would snap at any moment. “Very, very stupid,” Sachi added. 

Although weak, the Prophet’s angry voice cut through the screams and sobs. “They’re flawed again, damn you. Finish the ceremony and salvage what you can. Quickly.” Everyone flinched at the whip of magic that lashed through the room at his words. The room went quiet.

Body immobilized and radiating pain, the corruption circling thickly around her soul, beating away at her defenses, Akane felt despair. She’d done her best and still she’d failed. 

_ I’m sorry, Nabiki. I tried. I’m sorry, Ranma… I love you. Forever and always, I love you. _

Through her despair, Akane felt a trickle of approaching warmth. At first, she thought she imagined it, but then it swelled, washing over her mind like… like a hot-spring kiss shared on a summer night. It reignited the guttering flame of her hopes and made her spirit swoop up out of the abyss. She felt the impression of soft fur brushing against her fingertips and a soothing breeze on her cheeks. 

Staring into Sachi’s cruel eyes, tears of joy trickled down Akane’s temples. Akane couldn’t help but smile. She ignored the way it made her wounds crack open and the fresh blood trickle from her split lip. 

Sachi frowned, the twitch of her finger slicing a second, thin line across the skin of Akane’s painfully arched throat. “What are you so happy about, brat?” 

* * *

 

As Ranma ran into the compound, he distantly noted Ryoga falling in by his side along with several monks. All thoughts of stealth fled from his mind. He had to find Akane now. Nothing else mattered. 

The bright cord connecting him to Akane stretched down the hallway.  He rounded a corner and saw a closed door ahead guarded by four soldiers. Akane was inside. He could feel it. The soldier’s hands dropped to their weapons. Before they could draw, Ranma hit them with a ki blast, knocking the soldiers out before the cries in their throats could finish forming. 

Barely breaking stride, Ranma threw open the door and burst inside. In a single glance he took in the room. Women and children were chained to opposite sides of the room. Seven soldiers were standing along the walls of the room and rats covered the floor. 

Sitting on a throne lounged a man in a gaudily patterned yukata. His head shifted like a mirage between cadaverous human and rodent. Probably the demon.

Ranma’s eyes finished on the other side of the room. There he found Akane. His Akane. They’d put her in a white robe, tied her down to an altar, and slashed her bloody. The corrupted monk Sachi, face half swollen, had Akane’s head pulled back into a painful-looking arch and held a knife to her throat. 

_Akane was the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen and he was going to_ kill them all _for doing this to her._

The door at his back finished swinging open and slammed against the wall with a loud  _ BANG. _ Sachi jerked in surprise at the sound and whipped around to look at him. The blade of her knife followed the motion and vanished into Akane’s throat. 

“Oops,” he distantly heard Sachi say.

Time froze. 

The blade had vanished. Only the hilt stuck out of Akane’s skin.  _ Let time stop there. Let everything stop there, _ his mind whispered, screamed, wailed. Ranma could not see what came next. He would not survive it. He refused.

But Ranma Saotome was cursed. He had no luck. He was...  _ useless _ .

Time resumed. The blade, coated in red, slid back into view. Precious skin parted like a broken zipper. Akane’s eyes went wide and shocked. Blood spurted hard and fast from the slice across her arched neck, spattering up onto her face and rapidly soaking her white robes, drenching them with scarlet at each faltering pump of her heart as she died. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know things are very bleak right now, but stay with me. I will end this story happily. I promise.


	42. I Will Follow You into the Dark

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning for violence and more death.   
> As always, I promise there will be a romantic and happily ever after. That’s how I roll.

 

Screams filled the room. Anguish. Rage. Insanity. Vision a flat monochrome, the only color the violent red blood pouring from Akane’s throat, it took Ranma a second to realize that one of the tortured screams came from his own throat. He sounded like a mortally wounded animal. Swallowing the jagged sounds back down felt like swallowing shards of glass. Ranma ground his teeth together. His jaw hurt, a safe focus compared to the pain in his mind and heart. 

Fists crackling with barely contained bolts of energy, Ranma charged. He didn’t care that Sachi was a woman or that she might be possessed by a demon. He just wanted to destroy the person who’d hurt Akane. Then he’d… he’d fix this. Somehow. He’d done the impossible before. He’d do it again.  _ Somehow _ . The alternative didn’t bear thinking about.

Scarlet drops of Akane’s blood stood out vividly on Sachi’s skin. It was wrong, all wrong. Out of control, Ranma let his fist fly with enough force to flatten a tank. She’d cut Akane’s throat. He would destroy her. If a phoenix egg appeared, he’d destroy that too. 

However, before his hit could land, a woman got in his way. She was too focused on attacking the monk to notice that Ranma was going to hit her too. Nothing but the sudden realization that the woman was Akane’s sister could have halted his punishment, but if— _ when _ Akane got better, she’d be mad if he hurt her sister, hurt Nabiki. He liked Nabiki, didn’t want to hurt her. Twisting his torso, Ranma dodged just in time to send his fist snapping through empty air. 

Nabiki had a tray in her hands. She swung it at the monk with a shriek of rage, barely missing Ranma as she cracked it across the side of Sachi’s head. The tray shattered and Sachi dropped to the floor.

Ranma wanted to hurt Sachi more, make her pay for what she’d done to Akane, but Akane’s body was falling, about to hit the altar. Revenge had to wait. As long as there was strength in his body, he’d always catch Akane when she fell. Always.

In a move he’d done countless times over the years, Ranma leapt forward and closed his arms around Akane’s body, but it felt wrong. Nothing about this was the same. It was so much worse. Akane convulsed in his arms. Hot blood spattered Ranma’s face and flecked his lips like the vilest poison. The thick smell filled his nostrils. Unable to stop a tortured moan, Ranma clamped his hand around Akane’s throat to seal the lips of the wound and try to force the bleeding to stop, to somehow force her to be okay. Despite his grip, blood bubbled through his fingers, staining his skin red.

Trying to pull her into his arms, he met resistance. They’d shackled her leg to the altar, staked like an animal for slaughter. Broken chains dangled from her wrists. Breath coming in ragged gasps, Ranma formed claws of ki on his free hand and sliced away all of the chains. 

_ How dare they do this to Akane. How dare they! _

A mighty blast of depression ki flew past his shoulder and exploded. It destroyed a table and broke a large hole in the back wall, opening it to the courtyard. Voices shouted and screamed, but Ranma barely heard them. The room exploded into violence. Fighters churned around the altar, running into the room. Sobbing, Nabiki huddled on the ground nearby.  Prisoners pressed against the walls. 

Ranma should be paying more attention, or at least making sure his back wasn’t vulnerable to attack, but he didn’t have the energy to care. Nothing mattered but the woman bleeding in his arms—his Akane.

Pulling her deeper into his chest with trembling fingers, Ranma tightened his hand on her neck. The bleeding was slowing, but not because of his grip. Akane just didn’t have that much blood left in her body. 

“Please,” Ranma whispered raggedly. “I’m sorry.  _ Please _ !” But no one listened. Akane’s panicked struggles slowed as her brown eyes dimmed. The ties linking Ranma to the soul of the woman in his arms quivered and frayed as she went unconscious and slid towards death. 

Tears burned down Ranma’s cheeks as if made of molten lead. He felt blind. Everything hurt. Curled around Akane’s body, he panted into her hair like a caged animal, overcome, helpless at the tearing agony and howling blackness of Akane’s impending death. It felt like a hurricane tearing at his sanity. His body shivered, the pain leaking out in physical bolts of destructive energy that hit walls and combatants indiscriminately. 

All was lost.

_ NO! _

The word reverberated through his mind, a hard slap across the face of his despair.  _ What was he doing, just giving up to blubber on the floor like a baby? _ Even a little girl was tougher than he was right now. He was better than this. Akane deserved better than this. She couldn’t die. Would not. He wouldn’t allow it, wouldn’t survive it, but his survival didn’t matter, only hers.  _ How dare he give up without even trying? _

Right now, he was being emotional and weak. Saotomes did not give up. Ranma was a fighter and a winner. Lack of control was for losers. Balling up his panic and rage, love and despair, he pushed them into a closet in his mind and slammed the lid shut. Ranma had to win the battle for Akane’s life, the most important battle he’d ever fought, but he couldn’t win if he didn’t start fighting.

Flipping frantically through every scrap of knowledge he possessed, Ranma seized on a key piece of information.  _ Wait _ ,  _ hadn’t Miaka’s prophecy warned of Akane’s death, but promised that it could be temporary? _ Ranma just had to stop being an idiot and get Akane to make the choice to come back to life. 

Ranma leaned to the side instinctively, avoiding a monk stumbling past with a soldier in a headlock. His mind whirled. He could catch hold of the fading spark of Akane’s ki, trap her soul before it moved on from her body, but what good would that do when her body was so broken?  _ He had to heal her body, but how?  _

The answer bloomed in Ranma’s mind. Just like he’d healed her feet after the hot spring, he could make Akane’s body congruent. However, with this much damage to both her body and soul, congruence could backfire and tear out Ranma’s throat instead. He’d need a source of extra energy, but even then it could backfire and kill him. Nevertheless, he’d take that risk gladly as long as Akane had a chance to live. She had to live.

“Ryoga!” Ranma called demandingly, his voice gravelly and raw after his primal scream. 

The lost boy collapsed on his knees next to Ranma. Negative emotion manifested as a dark cloud around Ryoga’s body, dimming the room. “Akane?” Ryoga asked, voice thick and almost incoherent with devastation. He loved Akane too.

Ranma couldn’t meet Ryoga’s eyes, unable to deal with the lost boy’s pain on top of his own. Not without shattering again. “Keep everyone out of my way,” Ranma ordered in a gravelly voice. 

Nodding jerkily, Ryoga stumbled to his feet. “Okay, but—,” his breath caught in a sob, “but what can even you do?” 

“I’m going to save her,” Ranma snarled, sending an angry glare at Ryoga before returning his eyes to the unnaturally white face of the woman in his arms, the woman he loved. Ranma’s eyes narrowed. The red blood that had drenched Akane’s robes had disappeared in that second of glancing away, leaving them a pristine white. The metallic taste of Akane’s blood on his lips was also gone. Stolen. It must have been taken by the demon pearls she’d once told him about.

It didn’t matter. 

The loss was temporary. He would get the blood back, get all of her back. Ranma would return Akane’s blood and soul, pulverize the pearls, and disembowel the demon. Everything would be fine and Akane would live. She had to. Nothing else was acceptable.

Ranma’s fingers trembled as they slid over Akane’s cold cheek. Despite his attempt to exert control on his body, cold sweat coated his forehead and back and his breathing was too fast. He was going into shock at the feel of Akane’s dying body in his arms. 

Opening all his senses, Ranma forced himself to critically evaluate what was left of the woman in his arms. There wasn’t much. Gritting his teeth, he reminded himself to stay in control. To heal Akane, he couldn’t just give her his energy. She was too damaged, both physically and spiritually. If he tried to use brute force, he’d fail. 

He didn’t have enough strength to do this alone. To win this battle, he needed Akane’s help. She’d love that, seeing him humble himself enough to ask.  _ Akane _ ,  _ I need your help, _ he pushed down the cord connecting them, his voice coaxing and pleading.  _ I need you! _

Each second she faded in his arms felt like torture, but Ranma had to do this right. He needed his partner. He needed Akane. For everything, he needed Akane. He didn’t want to live in a world without her in it. 

_ Stop wallowing! _ Ranma adjusted Akane’s still body in his arms and tried to pretend she was merely sleeping, tried not to see and feel the cuts scoring her flesh, tried to ignore his breaking heart and weeping soul. With all the tenderness he possessed, Ranma pressed a kiss to Akane’s slack lips. Then he sat back and locked away his heart. For this to work, Ranma had to be mean. Rules and limits would only hold him back. He had to be hard and act without hesitation. 

Flicking his thumb, Ranma broke open the earring he’d placed in Akane’s ear. Magic cracked. Ranma cut his finger on the wire and smeared the small clay bead with his blood, a whip to remind the spell who was in charge. The magic flinched, quivered, and then the reservoir of Akane’s lifeforce burst open, pure and beautiful and bright, just like the woman it belonged to. 

It felt like sun on the first day of spring, melting snow and restarting the cycle of life. The cloud of pure energy surged out of its cage and then split into a countless number of breathtakingly beautiful delicate sparks. Finally free, the energy had one purpose, to return to Akane’s womb and make it fertile enough to create a new life. 

But Akane didn’t need the power to make new life. She needed to repair the one she had. No matter that Akane had consented to the earring, Cologne would still say that enslaving Akane’s fertility to his own teetered on the cusp of evil. If the old bag saw him tearing that female energy from its natural purpose, she’d consign his soul to the abyss and send her entire tribe to cut out his organs and sacrifice them to the Gods. That beautiful energy would resist being twisted to any other purpose, but he had no choice. Ranma didn’t care if it made him evil. Right now, he only cared about one thing - Akane’s life.

Ruthlessly he grabbed at the sparks with a claw-tipped hand, fisting them in his darkness and not letting even one escape. Ranma forced the sparks into a ball. Linked intimately to his blood and enslaved by the primitive magic of the earring, the light of Akane’s fertility compressed inside a cage of shadows. It fought him, just as he’d expected, but Ranma hardened his heart against the quivering sparks. Imposing his will on the energy, he pressed it against Akane’s chest and loosened the cage. 

Instead of continuing to fight him, the energy paused for a moment in his fist and then the sparks caressed him as if granting forgiveness, taking his pain for a split second. Barely keeping his composure, Ranma watched as the energy flowed out into Akane’s heart, filling her arteries and veins, and sliding over her muscles and skin. Delicate like a soap bubble, it formed an iridescent film that rippled across the damage done to her body and sealed up the cracks. 

Akane’s heart began to beat. 

Sealing his mouth over her lips, Ranma blew air hard into her lungs, reminding them of their purpose. Air sacs filled and the magic took over, making Akane breathe out and in again in a shallow but stable rhythm. The magic forced her body to mimic life like a puppeteer jerking on strings. It hurt to know it was only a parody of life, but Ranma reminded himself that this would give him time. He needed that time to heal her body completely and pull her soul back into it. 

Ranma didn’t want to give Akane a choice about coming back. He wanted to force her to live. He’d done it before, but the woman he loved wouldn’t put up with that again. She’d stubbornly demand the right to choose. He just had to make sure she he manipulated her into making the right choice. 

It would be difficult since he’d promised her no more lies. He respected and loved Akane too much to make the same mistake again. He’d certainly make new mistakes, and wouldn’t completely rule out stretching the truth for her own good, but she would understand and forgive him in time as long as she was alive to do so. 

_ And if he failed and Akane chose otherwise? Chose not to come back? _

The answer was simple. Over the years, Akane had often followed after Ranma, trying to keep him safe, trying to cheer him up, trying her best to just be there so he wasn’t alone. Now it was his turn. If she wouldn’t or couldn’t come back, Ranma would would follow her into the dark.

But first, he had to heal Akane’s body so she had the chance to make that choice. About to flow into the next part of his plan, Ranma felt the pulse tapping against the hand he’d wrapped around Akane’s throat stutter. It beat normally for four beats and then faltered again. Ranma wanted to howl at the unfairness. 

The congruence kata took time to shift their energies into alignment. He’d thought the magic of the earring would give him that time, but Akane’s body and soul were just too damaged. He needed something more to tip the scales in his favor. The magic should have been able to keep Akane’s organs going for hours, but there wasn’t enough blood in her body. Having to mimic the blood and pump her organs at the same time was draining the power too quickly. 

For a second he seriously considered slitting his wrists and pressing them against Akane’s open wounds, but he ran the risk of passing out before completing the ritual, leaving them both to certain death. Anyone else’s blood would be rejected by her besieged body. No, he somehow needed to get Akane’s own blood back into her body. 

Ranma spun, easily finding the pearl necklace in a clear patch of floor. It was exactly as she’d described. No one went near it, circling warily lest they too be devoured. Only Ranma stalked closer. How convenient that the pearls had collected all of Akane’s spilled blood in one place. Ranma would take it back. He would return the blood to her body and she would live again. 

Voices shouted, magic snapped, felines snarled and rats hissed. Gliding forward, Ranma slid, stomped, and swirled, taking the first steps to bring his and Akane’s spirits into harmony while simultaneously gathering his energy for a massive attack. Ki gathered in the soles of his feet. Akane’s body felt too cold, her breathing artificial and jerky as her heartbeat stuttered, but he couldn’t think about that or he’d go crazy... more crazy. 

A knot of fighters blocked his way. Ranma kicked one of them out of his way and spun around the rest of the group, leaping over two bodies wrestling on the floor. He passed a young male monk freeing chained prisoners from the walls. Part of the ceiling had collapsed on the demon across the room and a group of soldiers were frantically digging him loose. Bad things would happen when the demon joined the fight, but that nebulous future had no power over him. Only Akane did.

Between Ranma and the pearls stood the cat man Ranma had fought in the fortress all those months ago. The warrior backhanded an attacking female monk and met Ranma’s eyes. His melted-wax face twisted with recognition and anticipation. The woman he’d hit didn’t stay down. Jumping back to her feet, she hammered a blow against his side that made him stagger. Before she could follow-up, he grabbed a soldier and pushed him at the monk, sending the two sprawling. 

Turning back to Ranma, he charged, bouncing off someone’s back to attack from above with his hands curled into claws. Bracing himself to fight the difficult opponent with the handicap of Akane in his arms, Ranma was saved by Ryoga. The lost boy tackled the cat man in midair and slammed him to the floor. Fists flew as Ranma turned away. He trusted Ryoga to handle it. Akane’s time was running out.

Stepping into the open space around the string of pearls, Ranma’s thoughts suddenly slowed. His purpose grew murky and his body stumbled to a halt as magic burst forth from the pearls. It felt like a song of indescribable beauty, as potent as a siren luring sailors into the sea. Ranma stared down, unblinking, barely breathing as his eyes caressed the shimmering pearls full of faintly moving forms. The necklace was beautiful. It wanted him to protect and feed it. 

Ranma could do that. He was good at protecting things and he couldn’t help but care for the beautiful beads. Filling his mind with feelings of pleasure, the pearls prodded him to drop everything to pick them up, to love and devote himself to them above all else.

But... Ranma’s hands were full of Akane.  _ Why would he ever drop Akane? _ Lashes draped across Ranma’s eyes in a long, slow blink. The pearls disappeared from view. In that moment of blackness, fur bristled beneath his skin and fangs pricked in sharp warning.

Ranma cared about the pearls, but they couldn’t make him feel  _ more _ than that. Going through life, Ranma found it easy to care for people. It made him happy and an honorable person, according to his mother, should care for and protect others. Ranma cared for his friends and family, for innocent bystanders and interesting opponents. However, he made a choice to care for those things. They made his life interesting and kept him from being lonely and bored. Caring for Akane wasn’t a choice.

Most of the time Ranma passed for normal, even with all of the curses. However, Ranma wasn’t normal. Whether you called it training or torture, his childhood had wired his brain differently. It had taught him harsh lessons and twisted his perceptions. The mental channels the pearls relied on to enslave someone with love were warped almost beyond recognition in Ranma Saotome. 

Until Akane came along, Ranma had accepted that he probably wasn’t capable of loving another person the way everyone else seemed to take for granted. Sixteen years of living had made him well aware of his limitations. Yet somehow, impossibly, Akane had become his heart and the center of his world. He’d tried to fight it, but it was a battle he couldn’t win. For the first and perhaps only time in his life, he appreciated surrender. Ranma gave into his love for Akane. She was his now. It was nice to have family, friends, and opponents, but the truth was, only two things in his life had never let him down - martial arts and Akane Tendo - and he didn’t have the capacity to care even half as much for anything else, much less care more, as the magic of the pearls demanded he do. Maybe if he lived long enough he’d figure out how, but until then, he wouldn’t worry about it.

The pearls were full of stolen blood. Akane needed that blood or she’d die. Nothing was strong enough to keep him from taking that blood back, no matter how pretty they were or how much he cared about them. Akane trumped everything. That the pearls were evil and needed to be destroyed simply made his regret easier to bear.

Ranma shifted his fingers and magic around Akane’s neck to release a single drop of her blood. It splattered onto the ground. The magic of the necklace immediately dragged the precious drop of blood across the floor, thinning the magical skin of the pearls to pull the blood inside. In the process, the necklace made itself vulnerable for a split second. 

Full of regret at what he had to do, Ranma nevertheless moved like lightning. Lifting a ki-sheathed foot powered by the rage and anguish seething in his belly, he stomped hard on the pearl necklace. The floorboards disintegrated into sawdust and the ground cratered beneath his foot, shattering the string of pearls with a sound like the shrieking of the damned. The explosion flung Ranma into the ceiling. Taking the impact on his shoulders, he flipped through the air with his precious burden clutched to his chest and managed to land in a crouch. Blood geysered up and then splashed back down, streaming into the bowl of the crater to form a dark red puddle. 

Across the room, the demon in the brightly colored robe who’d just regained his feet gave an ear-splitting bellow and fell to his knees, clutching his head in pain. Flinging out his arm, he released a wave of magic. Everyone in the room flinched and staggered, including Ranma, who’d just stood up when he suddenly found himself on his knees without knowing quite how he’d gotten there beyond the ringing in his ears. The demon then fell to the ground as if unconscious.

Seconds later, mutated female cat soldiers began racing into the room. Several of them bore clawing Iriomote cats on their backs. More cats raced in on their heels. Meeting their charge, the rats jumped up from the floor to bite and claw at the Iriomote cats. Monks and soldiers forced their way into the already crowded room. Ryoga cursed and kicked the cat man in chest, sending his body flying through the space in front of Ranma, knocking the new combatants out of his way. Seeing the cats gave him the feeling of being surrounded by flies, an annoying buzz of fear and irritation that he could ignore to focus on Akane.

Gliding quickly into an open space, Ranma swirled into the kata for congruence. He spun around the crater of blood, pulling, coaxing, forcing the angles of energy into place, instinctively making minute corrections with each step. Pushing with as much finesse as he could muster, Ranma pushed Akane’s thinning energy out to align with the sphere of his own. He added a slight wave to each step, making the sphere of ki spin, turning it into a scoop that dipped into the crater on each rotation to retrieve Akane’s blood, calling like to like. Although the dark red puddle in the crater wasn’t close to empty, Ranma stopped as soon as it felt like no trace of Akane remained. 

Moving away from the lingering corruption, he followed Ryoga’s ki blast to a clear corner of the room. In the new space, Ranma paced the congruence kata again. Ryoga fell beneath two twisted cat soldiers. A pang of worry spiked in Ranma’s chest. Fighters struggled around the room, coming closer to his corner. 

Suddenly Nabiki appeared at his side, eyes bloodshot and designer haircut disheveled. “Save my sister or I’ll destroy you,” she snapped at Ranma, her normally cool voice uncharacteristically hoarse. Then she raised a broken table leg and swung it with more deranged ferocity than skill at a group of advancing soldiers. She held her own for over a minute as Ranma paced his kata, but then lost her weapon to a soldier almost twice her size. An older female monk Ranma vaguely recognized from Akane’s sickroom all those months ago charged out of the fighting. Kicking the soldier about to punch Nabiki, the monk and her comrade took up position to help defend Ranma’s corner. 

Ranma did the kata again, trying to throttle back his impatience and fear. The congruence couldn’t be rushed. Abruptly the fertile magic he’d twisted into sustaining Akane popped and gave out with a fizz of sparks, a quick warmth on his senses like a goodbye kiss. 

Akane’s body stopped living. Their spiritual ties once more shriveled. Not allowing himself to think about anything but the next step of the kata, Ranma forced his movements to stay sure and strong. Exercising iron control, he bent his left leg deeply into a 25 degree angle and moved his right leg slowly until it achieved a 155 degree angle. He pivoted in a semicircle and then shifted with his knees still bent so his legs formed a pentagon with the ground. Abruptly surging upwards to straighten his legs, he pivoted on one foot like a ballet dancer, drawing a circle on the ground with his outer toe. As he completed the revolution, the energy finally curved into place. 

Akane sighed and then began matching breaths and heartbeats to his. Throttling back the urge to celebrate prematurely, Ranma kept going. It took three more revolutions in the shape of an equilateral triangle before Ranma finally felt everything finish settling into place with perfect congruence. Akane’s cheeks pinked, her skin warmed, and the wounds on her throat and limbs disappeared until her body lay whole in his arms, utterly healthy and completely perfect. 

Ranma felt emotionally drained, but he wasn’t even close to done. Despite healing her body, Akane’s spirit barely lingered in her body. Only the piercing claws of Ranma’s cat side had kept it attached while he’d focused on her physical healing. The demon still had a putrid harpoon attached to Akane’s spirit, yanking her towards eternal damnation in the demon plane. Akane’s soul hung suspended between the pull of Ranma and the rat demon.

Akane belonged to him. Ranma would never let someone else have her, much less a demon. He was never letting Akane go,  _ never _ .

Kneeling down on the ground, Ranma pressed his forehead to Akane’s and dropped fully into the spiritual plane. He took stock of how much energy he had left, of the cords stretching between his soul and Akane’s, and of the three aspects of his spirit: male, female, and feline. This had to work. Ranma would give anything and everything for Akane’s sake. 

Keeping that thought in mind, pushing down his habitual fear and distrust, Ranma knew what he had to do. Reaching out, he connected with his cat side. With full awareness of the consequences, Ranma told the feline what he had to do. The cat froze. For a second, Ranma thought the contrary cat would actually refuse, but he loved Akane just as much as Ranma did. Their eyes met and held. Then the cat bowed his head and got to work. 

Turning, Ranma dived deep into the spiritual plane, following instinct and the fraying tie binding Akane’s soul to his as it disappeared down, down through dark caverns and into a seemingly endless fog. Unlike the last time he’d returned Akane’s spirit to her body, there was no climbing to find a shining heavenly gate on top of a grassy hill. Instead, Ranma travelled deeper and deeper into the gray. Time had no meaning. Ranma felt no hunger or thirst, just a throbbing push to hurry, to find Akane before it was too late. That and the pain. 

Eventually he made his way out of the fog, only to find himself facing a vast, green forest full of shadows and watching eyes. No sun shone overhead, merely a solid curtain of white clouds. Firming his jaw, Ranma forced his way through the thick forest and the creatures who tried to eat his spirit along the way. Finally breaking through the trees, he found a series of three rivers swollen to turbulent gray and white. Undeterred, Ranma swam across the rivers one by one. The battering force of each river pushed him downstream, forcing Ranma to backtrack each time to reacquire the path leading to Akane. 

Spiritually bruised and drained, Ranma finally came to a large, flat plain. The grasses bent beneath the force of the wind. They stretched out toward the horizon in an unending swathe of yellow-green and gray. In the far distance stood a lone mountain in the middle of the plain. The peak disappeared into clouds of such blinding whiteness that it hurt his eyes to look upon them. The spiritual tie looping him to Akane went in that direction. Ranma followed it, travelling through the green and yellow grassland for what felt like days. Whenever it felt like he was about to reach the foot of the mountain, he’d blink and it would once more seem distant and just out of reach. Ranma refused to give up. 

Then one endless day it happened without warning. Ranma raised dull eyes from the rhythmic pounding of his feet and found his eyes caught by the light glinting off a shining door set into the base of the mountain. The door stood less than a mile away. Ranma forced his weary body into a sprint, trying not to blink despite the watering of his eyes in case the magic of this place spirited the door far away from him. As he got closer, he realized that the door was made not of metal, but of opaque glass. It reflected the light from the clouds, but showed nothing of the other side. A metal bar spanned the glass door. The cord to Akane’s spirit led inside. 

Not hesitating, Ranma grabbed the metal bar and wrenched open the door. It opened smoothly without any resistance. A long hallway stretched into the distance, seemingly empty and without end. No doors or windows broke the uniformity of the blush pink paint on the walls. Pendant lights made of amber glass and bronze geometric shapes hung at regular intervals from the ceiling. Underfoot, the dark blue carpet had a pattern of repeating triangles and squares in gold and cream that echoed the shape of the lights. It reminded him of some sort of upscale hotel.

Squaring his shoulders, Ranma stepped inside. The door closed silently. Glancing back, he made note of the shadows he cast upon the door: two overlapping human silhouettes of different heights that merged and unmerged with a large cat. Ranma turned his back to the door and broke into a jog. The subtle curve of the hallway kept him from seeing very far ahead. He ran and ran. 

Finally in the distance he saw a break in the monotonous blue carpet and pink walls, a speck of black and yellow. As he got closer, he saw the hallway end and the speck resolve itself into a woman in a yellow dress. She stood facing away, but he knew it was Akane. The unique curve of her back was burned into his memory more indelibly than the taste of rice. 

“Akane!” the name leapt from Ranma’s tongue like a fish escaping near death in a bird’s gullet to dive back into the ocean’s warm embrace. Exultant, relieved, Ranma raced forward. She didn’t turn. “Akane!” He called again, but still she faced away, back becoming more stiff and unwelcoming the closer he got, but that made no sense. She probably just couldn’t hear him, he decided. Perhaps her spirit was dazed or still in shock from almost dying. 

The end of the hallway was split by a line from floor to ceiling, like a pair of doors. Two circular buttons were recessed into the wall on the right side. Akane’s fingertip looked white where she had it pressed hard against the top button. Still she didn’t turn. Wanting to sweep her into his arms, barely containing the maelstrom of emotions flooding his soul, Ranma reached out, words of love trembling on his lips. 

Yet the second his fingers skimmed her arm, Akane stiffly dodged away from his touch, not even bothering to glance his way. Frowning, face full of life and emotion, she banged her fist angrily against the top button on the wall. Ranma’s fingers hovered in midair for a moment, trembling slightly, before falling to his sides and curling into a fist. The air thickened with silent tension. 

Ranma felt his temper pricking. They were probably going to fight, but... that was okay. Sure, she was being contrary, but beneath that he was just so damned happy to see her that he would put up with anything she had to say. He didn’t mind fighting with Akane as long as they made up at the end. He especially liked Akane being around for him to fight with. 

“Do you know how to make this work?” Akane demanded abruptly in the silent hallway, making Ranma jump. However, she still didn’t bother looking at him, keeping her attention on the top button as she began picking at it with her fingernails. Her face looked tight as she muttered, “Of course it’s you, but that doesn’t matter if I can just get this button to work.”

Stung, Ranma dropped straight past indulgence and into irritation. “You don’t need the button, Akane. The  _ button _ doesn’t matter because I’m here now! C’mon, it’s time to go!” 

Akane’s lips twisted. She flattened her hand on the wall next to the buttons and dropped her head. Thick strands of blue-black hair slid down over her cheeks and deep brown eyes, hiding her expression before he could get a read on just what she was thinking. “Just like that?” she asked evenly. “I don’t think so.” 

Fed up, he grabbed Akane’s arm and yanked her around to face him, not letting her dodge or shake him loose. Akane’s hand skidded and pressed across both buttons as she tried to resist turning, but ultimately he was bigger and stronger. “Look at me!” Ranma snapped. 

Akane’s thick lashes lifted as she finally met his gaze, revealing the beauty of velvet brown eyes full of life. The impact of that gaze felt like a punch to the chest. The life in those eyes meant everything,  _ everything _ . Ranma’s voice went tight. “You’re going to live.” Grip loosening, he stroked his thumb across the downy softness of Akane’s inner arm and let himself get lost for a second counting the amber flecks in her eyes. Akane shivered as he whispered huskily, “For once in your life, Akane, don’t be stubborn and difficult.” 

The wonderfully smooth and unbroken skin of Akane’s throat bobbed as she swallowed. She searched his eyes desperately, no longer seemingly cold and remote. He didn’t know what she was looking for, but he wanted to give it to her, wanted to give her everything. Licking her lips in an innocent move that made things low in his belly clench, Akane whispered, “I want to.”

Sliding his hand down the sleek muscles of her arm to intertwine their fingers, Ranma tugged. No longer resisting, Akane let him pull her up against his body. “Then come with me,” Ranma coaxed, trying to tempt her into choosing life, trying to keep his mind on strategy instead of letting himself be overcome by the feel of her lush curves pressing warmly against the hard planes of his body.

Akane’s eyes closed, but she didn’t try to move away. He wasn’t going to bring up the rest of that stupid prophecy until and unless it became necessary. They had to at least try for a happy ending first. A moment of silence passed that Ranma had to fight hard not to break with either babbling or throwing her over his shoulder like a caveman and running for the door. 

Finally, Akane opened her eyes and looked up straight into his. She looked vulnerable and scared, but Ranma refused to give her any quarter, his eyes boring into hers in silent demand. Akane bit her lip and then nodded. “I’ll try,” she agreed unsteadily. 

Turning her head, Akane pressed a fleeting kiss against the corner of Ranma’s jaw. It burned like a brand, somehow a gesture of both surrender and ownership. “I missed you,” she whispered with aching sweetness. 

Ranma’s vision went blurry. It wasn’t until Akane cupped his jaw and rubbed across his cheek with her thumb that he realized he was crying. His throat felt too thick to form words, unable to express what her loss had done to him. Curling himself over the woman in his arms, Ranma buried his face into the crook of her neck and held on tight. Akane clutched him back fiercely, flattening one arm in the middle of his back and fisting the other in his hair. “Oh, Ranma,” she whispered.

“I’m sorry, I’m so damn sorry,” Ranma squeezed out on a gasp of breath, his hands clutching convulsively, reminding himself that Akane was alive and in his arms.

“I’m sorry too,” Akane said wetly. 

The nonsensical nature of her words made Ranma lift his head and scowl. “Don’t be stupid. You have nothing to be sorry about. I’m the one that screwed up everything.”

Akane’s eyes snapped. The hand buried in his hair yanked hard once. “Don’t call me stupid, you jerk. I can be sorry if I want to! And none of this crap is your fault  _ or _ my fault. It’s the demon’s fault!” 

“Fine,” Ranma growled.

“Fine,” Akane snarled in an adorable echo that abruptly made him want to grin. She’d probably kick him if he told her that.

Ranma fingers spread over the enticing curves of Akane’s lower back and hips as his eyes grew heavy-lidded. “I’m going to kiss you,” he announced, just to see what she’d do.

Leaning back, Akane looked up at him through her eyelashes and raised one eyebrow. “Not if I kiss you first, slowpoke.” 

Ranma was smiling when their mouths met halfway in a sweet kiss. Their barely parted lips slid across each other in an intimate greeting that he felt no urgency to rush. Reaching up to circle Akane’s throat with one possessive hand, Ranma felt the jagged edge of recent events begin to smooth. For a few seconds the plump curves of Akane’s lips pressing against his were enough to bring him peace, but then the ravenous, uncivilized beast inside demanded more. He wanted, needed to lick its way into her mouth over and over again until she couldn’t think or even breathe without tasting him there. Pulling back just enough to look into Akane’s pleasure-dilated eyes, he whispered against her lips, “Open your mouth.” 

Akane’s eyes flashed at the order. She slid forward and unexpectedly nipped his bottom lip with her teeth. The small sharp hurt sent sharp pleasure zipping through his body. It made Ranma want to do bad bad things to the sexy woman in his arms. Pulling open her smug but unresisting lips with the thumb on her chin, Ranma’s tongue surged into the warm cavern of her mouth, laying claim, devouring the taste of the woman he loved. Akane whimpered at the sensual assault, digging her nails into his back as she went up onto her toes to give as good as she got, kissing him with love and wild abandon. 

She tasted of memories: of running through the streets of Nerima side by side, of sparring in the dojo, of sitting at meals with their legs brushing each time they moved, of laying on the grass together stargazing, of each time they held hands or hugged or kissed. Even more, with each stroke of his tongue and lips he could feel echos of Akane’s stubborn devotion and pure love. She really did love him as much as he loved her. He could feel it stroking across his spirit like the brush of downy feathers. Feeling drugged, they kissed and kissed until battling tongues slowed to sweetly sipping lips. Leaning back, Ranma pressed his forehead against Akane’s and sighed. 

“Wow,” Akane announced, eyes crinkling at the corners.

“Double wow,” Ranma answered with a grin, so full of love he could barely contain it. Sighing, he forced himself to loosen his grip on the woman in his arms. “We should get going, return to our bodies, destroy the demon, and find a comfy bed to  _ sleep _ in, if you know what I mean,” he wagged his eyebrows.

“As long as they’re clean sheets,” Akane retorted easily, slanting him a superheated look. 

Ranma’s cheeks went red and his mouth went dry. He wavered between shock at her agreement and overwhelming lust as his hindbrain offered up ideas of what they’d get up to on those clean sheets. Nevertheless, “I-uh, I thought we were waiting for marriage? For-for that?” he stuttered.

Akane’s flirtatious expression turned into amusement as she stepped back with a chuckle. “I want clean sheets for  _ sleeping _ ,” she emphasized sternly, though her mouth twitched at the corners. “But you’re right that we aren’t,” she stumbled and turned pink, “aren’t making love until we’re married, no matter how tempting.”

Pushing down his tangled feelings and trying to hide his blushing cheeks, he turned them to face the hallway. “Then let’s go. The sooner we leave, the closer we are to-to getting married.” They shared a smile and began walking hand in hand. 

However, Akane slowed and then stopped before they’d gone even ten feet. Ranma tugged at her outstretched arm, but her body didn’t even rock on its toes. Pulling on her hand felt like trying to move the mountain itself. He opened his mouth to snap something, but the despair on Akane’s face froze his tongue. “Akane,” Ranma finally choked out, trying to sound impatient instead of afraid.

Lifting her free hand, Akane pushed her fingers out into the space between them. The tips of her fingers went white and flattened against what looked like empty air. “The barrier still won’t let me pass. I was hoping that maybe it was gone since you walked right through it without a stutter. I guess not.” Her lower lip quivered once before she pressed her mouth flat, flaring her nostrils as she tried to keep a calm face. 

“Then I’ll break it,” Ranma promised recklessly, “and if that doesn’t work, I’ll break through the walls or ceiling or floor. I’m not leaving you here.” Releasing her hand, Ranma tried everything to sense the barrier trapping Akane, but despite his best efforts, he couldn’t feel anything. Switching tactics, he began attacking the hallway itself, but his strongest hits failed to even chip the paint or create a snag in the carpet. Not even the lights would break. They simply swung away from his hits and returned with enough force to almost split his scalp open. 

Frustrated, he turned away from Akane’s watchful gaze and pulled roughly at his hair. His harsh breathing sounded loud in the empty hallway. He had to find another way.

“It- it’s okay,” Akane soothed unsteadily. “I couldn’t break the barrier either, but thank you for trying.”

“Don’t thank me,” Ranma snapped, keeping his back to Akane so he wouldn’t have to see her disappointed expression. “I’m not done yet. I’m just getting started.” He forced himself to sound confident and cocky. 

Into the ensuing silence came the unexpected ding of an elevator, followed by the sound of doors swooshing open at his back. “Don’t look,” Akane warned desperately, but it was already too late. Ranma only had a split second to take in the look of Akane’s white face and dilated eyes before his gaze was drawn to the open doors where the back wall used to be. 

A repulsive, pungent miasma pulsed just inside the opening. Ranma froze in atavistic terror, the hair on his arms standing on end and his breath going choppy. Forms slid in and out of focus within malevolent shadows that seethed with staring eyes the color of a diseased corpse left to rot. The bodies attached to those eyes didn’t make sense, with impossible proportions and irrational shapes. His mind literally could not comprehend it. Even just the small flashes of joints, claws, and skin made his mind shiver on the knife-edge of madness. 

Face turned to the side and eyes squinted almost shut, Akane lunged forward towards the doorway. Her hand slammed at the top button as she pressed herself flat against the wall. A twisted limb shot out of the doors, stabbing for Akane with something that was similar to but not quite a clawed tentacle. 

Mind snapping into focus at seeing Akane in danger, Ranma dashed forward. Kicking the tentacle back through the doors with a sound like stepping into a pile of dessicated leaves sheathed in frost, he felt the impact spike through his foot, leaving it numb. Ignoring the injury, he snatched Akane into his arms and jumped away. He flattened Akane against the wall as far back as she could go with the barrier in the hallway and balanced himself on his one good foot in front of her, raising his fists defensively. 

Something with the fuzzy legs of a spider, except covered in slime, sharp barbs, and the size of a rhino, started coming into focus out of the shadows. It curled the ends of its limbs around the edges of the open doors and began heaving itself into the hallway. Ranma’s mind tried to revolt, but if he broke and ran, he’d leave Akane to face this thing alone. Bulbous pus-colored eyes full of hunger dropped into view from the top edge of the door and peered into the hallway. 

_ Ding!  _ Ranma thought he’d imagined the sound of the elevator, but then the doors began sliding shut, forcing the multitude of legs back into the miasma. Claws scrambled frantically against the blush pink doors, only to be slurped inside seconds before the doors swooshed shut with finality. 

The hallway resumed its innocuous appearance. No claw marks gouged the paint or marred the blue carpet. The only thing proving what had just happened was the painful pins and needle feeling as his foot woke back up. Turning to Akane, he demanded, “What the hell was that!?” 

Slumping against the wall, Akane rubbed her face and laughed, though the sound held no humor. “You just answered your own question.”

“What’s that mean?” he snapped belligerently, shaken by the terror he’d just felt. 

Shooting him a glare, Akane pushed herself sharply to her feet until they stood toe to toe, refusing to take his crap, as always. Then she enunciated slowly, as if talking to an idiot. “That was hell, also known as the demon plane.” Arching an eyebrow, she asked, “Do you need me to draw you a diagram or speak more simply? How about this: demon plane  _ bad _ .” Akane crossed her arms across her chest.

Ranma felt himself flushing. Backing down, he paced up and down the hallway until his heartbeat settled into a normal rhythm. It hurt to do it, but he forced his mouth to form the words because it was Akane. “Sorry.”

Nodding, she let herself slump back against the wall at her back, though he noticed she kept the door in her peripheral vision. “Look Ranma, I’m dead. It’s just shy of my nineteenth birthday, as expected. There’s no easy fix for this.” Her hands cupped the elbows of her crossed arms and rubbed.

Leaning back against the wall across from her, Ranma let his own arms cross stubbornly. “Maybe not easy, but the prophecy does give you a fix.” 

“I don’t want to follow that stupid prophecy!” Akane shouted, arms dropping and eyes snapping. “The only way I come back is if someone I love dies! Well newsflash, Ranma, but the only people around that fit the bill are you and Nabiki and I’m not killing either one of you. I refuse!”

Letting his own arms fall to his sides, Ranma barely kept himself from yelling back. But this was a battle he refused to lose. Dropping his voice into a croon, he stepped close. “If you don’t, you’ll end up in the demon plane. Is that what you want? To go through the door to where those things live so they can torment and feed off you for eternity? Be reasonable, sweetheart.”

Knuckling wetness out of her eyes, Akane focused on the wall over his shoulder. “What’s reasonable about killing someone I love? Of course I’m terrified, but hurting someone else is worse.” Her words shook with the strength of her emotions.

Ranma couldn’t stand it. Stepping forward, he enfolded her in his arms and tucked her head beneath his chin. Akane curled herself into his embrace instead of continuing to fight. “A lot of people will be hurt if you don’t go back,” Ranma said softly to the crown of her head. Dropping a kiss onto her hair, he breathed deeply of her scent. “Your family, your friends… me,” he broke off as she rubbed her face against his chest in a move that made his breath catch.

“Please, Akane. You have to go back. The world’s no good without you in it.” Ranma sent his hands stroking up her back and down to her hips, over and over in a soothing cycle that hopefully felt as good to her as it did to him. “Besides, it’s not just my selfishness talking. That stupid prophecy says that you have to go back if we’re to have any hope of defeating the rat demon. If you don’t, we could all end up dying anyways: Nabiki, Ryoga, me, the monks from both Martial Arts Geometry temples, and even all those Iriomote cats. Did you know that the rat demon is their ancient enemy? Every adult cat who can fight showed up to do battle, even though their species is on the verge of extinction. If you don’t want that on your conscious, you have to go back.”

Akane gave a wet chuckle. “You manipulative bastard, don’t try to convince me that you care about a bunch of cats.”

Tugging playfully on the back of her hair, Ranma felt her shiver in his arms. Unable to stop himself, he slid his hand possessively over the nape of her neck and squeezed. Akane looked up, careful not to dislodge his hold. Her dark eyes slid across his face like she was dragging her lips over his skin. Desire pooled low in his belly.

“Of course I don’t care about a bunch of stupid cats,” he admitted, his voice gone husky, “but I know that you do.” His thumb stroked up and down the graceful column of her neck. “This is a fight I’m not going to lose. I will use anything and everything I have to until you give in. Nothing is more important to me than you are, Akane. I love you and I want you to live.” 


	43. Suck and Blow

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning for Major Character Death.  
> Neko = cat in Japanese.

 

Ranma’s sweet words of love, the way he kept stroking his fingers along her throat, it all made Akane want to agree to just about anything he said as long as he didn’t stop. “You’re not playing fair,” she said weakly. “I love you too, you know, even when you drive me crazy. What’s my life without you in it?”

Kissing the top of her head, Ranma slid his hand down her back, leaving warm tingles down her spine. His body surrounded her, but instead of feeling trapped, she felt cherished. It made what he wanted her to do even worse. If she gave in, she’d lose this, lose him.

Tilting his head to the side, he smiled confidently. “You’ll be fine as long as you’re still alive. You have family and friends to keep you busy, and one day in the far future when you’re a little old woman with a temper that keeps all the young punks in the neighborhood cowering in fear when they hoverboard past your house, you’ll die in your sleep peacefully one night and wake up to be with me again. I’ll spend that time learning secret techniques from a bunch of dead grand masters and driving the old farts crazy. Everything will be fine, you’ll see,” he coaxed. He sounded so confident, so reasonable.

But… “I don’t think I will be fine, Ranma. Not without you,” Akane shook her head against his shoulder. “Besides, even if I do figure out how to go back, the prophecy said that it would kill a bunch of other people too.”

“Mostly strangers,” Ranma pointed out with a sigh, “which probably means the evil scumbags working for the demon. They chose to be here and from what little I saw, they’re find with torturing women and kids. This isn’t like our normal fights, where people are just arrogant and selfish. These people are cruel. They’re evil. As for those female cat warriors, there’s not anything there left to save. You would be doing them a kindness by giving them the mercy of death. That’s what I’d want if it was me. Then there’s the demon, who’s the worst of all. Someone has to stop him and the prophecy makes it sound like it won’t happen without you.”

Tears pricked Akane’s eyes as she searched for a logical argument instead of selfish emotion. “But- but I don’t want this,” she said stubbornly, fisting her hands against his back.

“Too bad. It’s what you’ve got to work with,” Ranma answered in that maddeningly reasonable voice. “I’m dead one way or another because I’m not going back without you. It’s your choice this time. I won’t force you. Either we both die and hang out in the limbo of this hallway till the end of time... or you choose to live.”

Giving Akane that choice was a huge concession coming from Ranma, proof that he’d changed, that he respected and loved her. He’d given her the choice, but she didn’t want to make it. Both choices sounded awful. Tormented, Akane glared at Ranma’s collarbones. “There has to be another way,” she muttered.

“Not that I can think of, but if you’re keeping secrets, now is the time to share,” Ranma said in a tone of voice that made her hand itch with the need to hit his face. “Well?”

Looking up, Akane shook her head mutely and clenched her jaw. _Why did his words have to be so reasonable? It was infuriating._

Ranma tugged a lock of her hair teasingly and tilted his head to the side. “You’re meant to live, Akane. Not just because the world is a darker place without you in it, but because bad things will happen if you don’t. Your sister and the pig will die, the kids will die, the cats will die, and all those monks will die. The demon will pull them into that place with the creepy demons. He’ll win. You know you don’t want that, not even for Ryoga. You have to protect them Akane, or else what is all that martial arts training for? It’s your duty and your destiny to live and to fight.”

Pulling out of his hold, Akane began pacing the hallway. “Even if, IF I let you die here, there’s still no guarantee I can win against the demon,” she flung out her hands. “The prophecy is too vague!”

“It promises that doing this will help you defeat the evil,” Ranma answered stubbornly, his voice impatient. “Come on, it’s not like you have to trick me into this. I’m volunteering. You just need to let me do it!”

Stepping closer, Ranma forced her to stop pacing. As usual, he ignored her glare and did what he wanted anyways. “You know what the prophecy says,” Ranma squared his shoulders and sent her a challenging stare, “and you are ‘ _lucky and good and strong._ ’ So what’s the next line of the prophecy, Akane? Stop being stubborn and go on and say it.”

In that moment, Akane hated Ranma. She wanted to break his jaw so he’d stop talking. Her muscles twitched with the impulse. Akane clenched her teeth and focused on breathing, on counting to ten and the rush of air in and out of her nose instead of the miserable corner he was backing her into with his arguments. Ranma usually fought with fists instead of with words, but once he started a fight, he never stopped attacking until he won. She’s been stupid to let down her guard. She should have jumped into that hellish elevator as soon as she heard him calling her name down the hall. There’d be no saving his life now. He wouldn’t allow it, the beautiful, self-sacrificing _jerk_.

Reading the anger eyes, Ranma’s mouth twitched into a mirthless smile. His next words merely confirmed her thoughts. “Hit me if it’ll make you feel better, but it still won’t change things. This is going to happen one way or another. The prophecy says that you’ll make the choice, so just say it, Akane. Either give up and commit us to both to eternal boredom or make the choice to be a hero and live.”

No matter how much she raged inside, Akane couldn’t bring herself to hurt him. It wouldn’t help anything; it would only make this moment even worse. When she didn’t make good on her clenching fists, Ranma nodded and stepped close again, looming over her as he looked down into her face. “Say it,” he ordered crisply, no give in his face, no mercy, as if her capitulation was inevitable because this was his line in the sand and he would not be moved.

Bitterness flooded her mouth. Looking into Ranma’s hard eyes, she accepted in that moment that nothing she said was going to change his mind. Eternal boredom would kill the man she loved just as surely as what the prophecy demanded of her. “Ranma _no baka_ ,” she spat.

“Say it,” he repeated, giving no quarter. “You’ll make the choice and...?”

Akane forced herself to say the words, though each one felt like a shard of glass leaving her throat. “‘ _And allow that person to die for the greater good_.’”

And then the bastard smiled at her, like a teacher with a prized pupil, “Yes.”

“No! I hate you,” she snarled through the tears filling her eyes, even as she reached out and hugged him so hard that she’d have broken ribs if he’d been a normal boy, but Ranma Saotome had never been normal. Maybe she could have kept from falling in love with him if he had been, maybe she could have saved him from this moment.

Ranma engulfed her in his strong arms and squeezed her back. “I hate you, too,” he said with a smile in his voice, “except I’m lying, just like you are. You know you love me, because you can’t help yourself and I’m just that awesome. So say it, Akane, say you love me.”

Leaning back to knuckle the tears from her eyes, she scowled up into his unfairly handsome face. “Of course I love you, you arrogant jerk. You’re the very heart of me. I don’t want to accept that you have to die, but if… if you do, I’ll make that demon wish he’d never been born, so you better wait for me! If I come back only to find you making time with some ghost hussy, I’ll—I’ll make you regret it!”

Chuckling, Ranma dropped a kiss on her scowling lips. “The only woman I want is you, Akane. No one could ever take your place. In my heart, you are my soulmate, my one true love. I will wait for you forever.”

Cheeks going hot at the his words, Akane’s anger collapsed and her heart swelled. Cupping Ranma’s face, she rewarded him with a fierce kiss. Within seconds, he’d taken over, yanking her against his chest, tilting her head to the perfect angle, and diving into her mouth with desperate abandon, as if storing up the memory against future starvation.

Shaken, she realized that despite his smiles and words, he was just as scared and heartbroken as she was. The feel of his plush lips sliding over her own, pushing hers wider for the stroke of his tongue, it ignited a wildfire in her belly and sent lightning zipping to her toes and the tips of her ears.

Good or bad, the man drove her crazy, but he was hers and she was his. She might have to make this sacrifice, might have to lose him for a lifetime, but she would not give up her claim on him forever. They would be together again, in either the spirit world or their next life, and then she would make him her husband in truth. Akane refused to believe in anything else.

_If only there was another way!_

Ending their kiss, Ranma picked her up and slid down the wall into a sitting position, pulling her down into his lap. “Hey,” Akane cried at the unexpected move, wiggling in his hold. Chuckling, Ranma arranged her body so she was sitting on the ground with her back braced against his bent knee and her legs pulled over his other.

“Now that that’s settled and I’ve gotten my way, let’s talk strategy,” he said, catching her fisting hand for a kiss and then cradling it in his lap. “Do you have any ideas about how to defeat the rat demon once you’re back in your body?”

“I have ideas, but I’m not saying things are settled,” Akane grouched. Giving in to the comfort of being surrounded by Ranma’s body, she sighed and told him what she’d discovered about the holes in the demon’s spiritual defenses. “So while I don’t know how to destroy the demon itself, I think I can cut him loose from the body he’s possessing. I’ll have to be close to the Prophet to do it, and he’ll have to be distracted from what I’m doing because I’m still a novice at this, but I think I can force him to either run or find another, less suitable host. Maybe that will weaken him enough that someone can either exorcise or destroy him for good.”

“It’s a good plan,” he said simply, playing with her fingers. His lack of criticism, while surprising, also gave her confidence that her desperate plan just might actually work. “Especially since you don’t have to worry about destroying the demon once he’s out of his human host. The Iriomote cats have been fighting the rat demon for centuries and they hate him just as much if not more than we do. They showed my cat side how to damage the demon if he’s not entrenched in a human and my cat’s extremely eager to do so. If you can weaken the demon for us cats, we’ll do the rest.”

Breath catching at his words, Akane twisted to look him in the face with desperate hope. “Us? Wait, so there’s a way to save you after all? You’ll be there with me to fight the demon? I knew fate couldn’t be so cruel to us.”

“Akane…” voice cracking, Ranma lifted her hand to his mouth and pressed a hard kiss to her palm. He held the kiss for several seemingly endless seconds before pulling back. Cupping her hand in his much larger fist, he closed her fingers around the lingering sensation of the kiss. “I can’t escape the prophecy, but I won’t let the demon hurt you again. This body, these hands will fight to shield your body no matter what,” he vowed quietly, “but you have to know that I won’t be—”

“No, no, this is great!” Beaming, Akane jumped to her feet, uninterested in hearing more. The time for talking was over. It seemed almost too good to be true. Relief pounded through her veins like a canoe racing through river rapids. She felt almost lightheaded with it.

Ranma opened his mouth but she spoke over him again. “Let’s go. The sooner we finish this, the better.” Akane felt like dancing. When she couldn’t get the top button on the elevator going to heaven to work, and then Ranma only giving her two choices that both ended with his death, she’d assumed the worst, but now everything was going to be fine. She shouldn’t have underestimated him. Of course Ranma couldn’t die. She’d been so silly. The last time things had been this bad, Ranma had killed a demigod and gotten them both out alive and triumphant from Phoenix Mountain. They’d win this time too. Together, they were unstoppable.

“Akane,” Ranma said plaintively. She didn’t look at him. They just needed to get out of here and then they could talk as much as he liked.

As her hands abruptly slapped up against the hallway’s invisible barrier, Akane slammed to a stop. For some reason she’d expected it to be gone now. _What was Ranma’s plan to break it?_ He had to have a plan because they were getting out of here. _Together_.

“Akane,” Ranma repeated insistently, compassion and irritation twining through his voice like twin cats.

_Why did he have to talk? Couldn’t he just break the barrier so they could go?_ There’d be time to talk after the fight, after they won. Unable to meet his eyes, Akane looked at Ranma’s feet. The oddity of his shadow caught her eye. There were two.

Only two.

Most people had one shadow, but the last time she’d died, Ranma had had three because of his curses: man, woman, and cat. Right now, his dual shadows were fully human. Akane looked harder. No, wait, the cat wasn’t gone, just faint, his barely there shadow the palest shade of ash, but when she looked at her own shadow, the ash gray cat hid inside it too.

And just like that, reality rose up to slap her in the face. If it seemed too good to be true, it probably was. For a second more she let herself hope. Then she steeled herself and asked in a thready voice, “Are you not coming back with me? Was that another lie?”

Obviously frustrated, Ranma stomped in front of her and forced her to meet his eyes. Akane could only hold his gaze for a split second before her heart broke all over again. His eyes held nothing but pain. Grabbing his wrist, he squeezed so hard the skin around it went white. “No. I promised not to lie to you again and I plan to keep my word. That is, as long as you’ll let me talk!” His rising voice abruptly cut off at a shout. Ranma took a deep breath and spoke softly through gritted teeth. “We already agreed. You know how this has to play out. The only one lying here is you - to yourself.”

Akane felt her eyes sting and chest tighten. “Then what did you mean?” she snarled, trying not to cry. “If you’re dead here, how can you still be fighting by my side there? Of course that sounded like your spirit was coming back with me!”

“Okay, yeah, I can see that.” Rubbing the back of his neck, Ranma blew out a breath.

“Ya think!” Akane snapped.

Frowning fiercely, Ranma muttered, “I’m sorry,” he grabbed her hand, “but I woulda explained if you’d just listen for a second.” She tugged back, but he wouldn’t release her fingers. Instead, he pressed them to his chest. “I have to die here for you to live. That’s a truth we can’t escape.” Akane yanked harder, but it did no good. Ranma continued, “We can’t! However, my spirit is the thing that’s going to die, not my body. My body will keep fighting by your side. It’s just that… human me won’t be in it anymore. For you to come back to life, you’re going to have to take energy from me using the earrings. If you completely drain the power from both my girl and boy sides, it should be enough to heal you and send you back to your body.”

Shaking her head sharply, Akane pressed her lips together and looked away.

“You have to use the earrings to force me,” Ranma insisted. “I can’t get past my spirit’s instinctive resistance to dying otherwise and you’re too injured to survive if you don’t. However,” he licked his lips, a quick flash of red, “I’ve made it so my feline side isn’t bound by the earrings, only my humanity. The cat can hide most of himself inside you until I’m empty, then race back down the original cord I created between the two of us before it snaps with my death. He’ll take control of my body and the connection, using it to protect you, finish off the demon, and avenge me. It’s the only way.”

“But—”

“It’s the only way,” Ranma reiterated forcefully. “Him and me already agreed on it and you’re about the only thing we can agree on. You have to know that we’re both crazy about you, crazy enough to do whatever it takes to make sure you survive.”

The way Ranma was looking at her broke her heart, but she’d promised herself that she wasn’t going to cry again and she meant it, even if she had to pass out from holding her sobs in. Ranma rubbed his thumb across her hand where he’d pressed it to his chest and continued. “Time is running out. This is MY choice, Akane, so stop stalling.”

Unexpectedly he sent her a charming wink. “C’mon, you know I’m the only one who can do it. Someone you love has to die in this prophecy and there’s no way you love anyone more than me because I’m the best.” Her automatic eye roll just made him give her a gorgeous grin. “You know it’s true. You already admitted you love me, so no take backs. Besides, considering Nabiki’s nature, there’s no guarantee she’d go to heaven if she died and we don’t want that on our conscience. As for Ryoga, you’re not allowed to love that pig, so that just leaves me to, as usual, save the day. You know how I love playing the hero.”

Akane bit down on her tongue and forced herself to keep listening. Ranma’s smile turned wry at her unusual silence. “I suspected weeks ago that it would be me to die, but since it’s for you, it’s worth it. Go save the world. Please. My life is yours. Take it. One way or another, I’m dead. There’s no life for me without you. Even if for argument's sake I went back without you, I’d probably get killed by the demon anyway. That or go crazy, because without you I’d become an empty shell. You are my heart. I need you more than life.  Either way, the Ranma you know and love would be gone. Maybe growing up the way I did, I got twisted and obsessive along the way, but it is what it is and I can’t regret the way I love you.” He shrugged. “I’m not normal, not like you. Your heart is stubborn and strong enough to find happiness again. I want that for you. We’ve already been over all of this. You know what you have to do, so just do it. I won’t force you, I can only ask. Please, Akane. Live.”

His calloused fingers reached out to memorize the lines of her face, tracing over the curve of her sensitive lips, up the slope of her nose, and across the arch of her brow before dropping to cup her jaw. “This separation will last but a small moment and then we’ll never be parted again, I swear it. You’re mine. Forever.” Bringing up their clasped hands, Ranma closed his eyes and kissed each of Akane’s fingers, brushing them across his soft eyelashes and nuzzling against the tender skin of her inner wrist.

Swallowing back the futile arguments still stubbornly crowding her throat, Akane bowed her stiff neck. “Alright,” she squeezed out painfully. Stepping forward until their intertwined hands were the only thing separating the press of their hearts, Akane looked up into his stormy blue eyes. There was nothing else to say, nothing but… “I am yours, just like you’re mine, but I won’t breathe easy until I see you again.” At that moment, Akane felt so full of love she could barely speak past the lump in her throat. “I freely give to you what you’ve already stolen, my soul and my heart. No matter what comes, I’ll always love you.”

Going up on her toes, Akane sealed her lips to his, plundering his mouth for one last taste and giving him everything she had and was. Drinking in her lips just as greedily, Ranma slanted his mouth across hers and kissed her back with an all consuming fire, until the edges of their souls intermixed into hazy ecstasy and she couldn’t tell where he began and she ended.

Wrenching his mouth away with a tortured groan, Ranma rasped, “Don’t kiss me like that or I’ll never let you go! My altruism and self-control aren’t boundless. At heart I’m a selfish and greedy bastard, so stop dragging this out and lets just get on with it!”

Akane swallowed, the taste of him lingering in her mouth. “Fine,” she said hollowly.

“Fine,” he echoed. Breathing heavily, he took a small step back but couldn’t seem to bring himself to release his grip on her hand. “Here we go.”

Lashes lifting, he met her gaze with an impact that made her body jolt just as his body started to change. Despite the lack of cold water, Ranma’s body shrank: shoulders narrowing, chest and hips curving, and black hair becoming the bright red of his female form. Ranko turned and pressed a hot kiss to the inside of Akane’s wrist that made Akane’s breath catch and her blood turn to honey. Expression smug, Ranko purred, “Even like this, you’re so mine.”

Before Akane could figure out a suitable put down for Ranma’s massive ego, the redhead moved Akane’s fingers to the earring, their fingers now the same size instead of Ranma’s male hand dwarfing hers. “And I’m yours. Take it. Now.” Akane went stiff, but Ranko’s commanding gaze didn’t waver. There would be no more stalling.

Voice paralyzed with grief and dread, Akane forced herself to give a slight nod and begin pulling energy through the earring. She’d taken energy from Ranma before, but never so much at once and never quite like this, never with the intention of draining him dry. She wanted it to feel awful, but it didn’t. It felt amazing, like a full belly after a restful night’s sleep and then scoring the winning point in the championship match. Akane felt more powerful than she had even with the battle dogi.

Forcing the link between them as wide as it would go, she swallowed energy down. At first it came in gulps, but after a while it began to feel like sucking on a straw in an almost empty glass. With the difficulty came a feeling of wrongness and echoes of secondhand pain. Akane didn’t know if she could make herself finish.

“Don’t slow down,” Ranko gritted out through clenched teeth that only emphasized the delicate beauty of her face. “You still have my male side to do when you finish with this one, so stop wimping out like a baby needing a sippy cup and muscle through it like the gorilla you are.”

“Fine,” Akane snapped, pulling more energy, and ignoring the sharp throb of wrongness jolting across her nerves beneath the power and pleasure. She hated being mocked, especially by Ranma. His ability to be a complete jerk at the worst time was as dependable as his protectiveness in the face of danger. It was a miracle she’d ever fallen in love with the man. She sucked harder and Ranma’s energy obeyed her order, pouring into her spirit, swelling it, making her feel stronger and more powerful, but doing nothing for the pain in her heart.  “I’ll show you gorilla,” she muttered with forced bravado, not letting herself stop.

For a second, Akanke thought she was imagining the red of Ranko’s hair flickering and the hazing outline of her short, lush body. Then the feel of the metal earring beneath Akane’s fingertip turned into a shard of blistering-cold ice and Ranko’s energy went dry. The earring burst into powder and the redheaded girl disappeared, abruptly replaced by Ranma’s taller male body.

Ranma’s knees buckled. Akane grabbed his shoulders roughly, barely keeping him on his feet. The fingertip that had been touching the earring stung and throbbed like a ripped-open blister. Locking his legs with a barely audible gasp that nevertheless sounded tortured, Ranma shook off her supportive hold. “Go on,” he growled, out of breath, “finish it.”

Hands hovering in midair, Akane shook her head, “Ranma—”

“Other. Side,” he ordered harshly, face white and shimmering with beads of sweat. Lines of strain dug deep grooves on his forehead and along the sides of his mouth. “Don’t chicken out now, ‘kane.”

“You suck,” she answered tightly. He must be even worse off than he looked if chicken was the worst insult he could think up. Forcing herself to reach up to his other ear, Akane touched the second earring and began stealing Ranma’s remaining energy. Unlike Ranma’s smoother female energy, his male side had a harsher undertone, like how the tickle of carbonation turned into a slight burn when you held soda on your tongue for too long. “This sucks. This prophecy sucks and now I have to suck out your life. Everything **sucks**.”

Voice shaky, Ranma replied. “I don’t know. For me, I’d say the energy transfer _blows_ more than sucks.” Meeting her incredulous eyes, he added earnestly, “Everything **blows**.” Akane couldn’t stop her snort of laughter. Ranma’s lips tilted up.

Seconds later, his blue eyes turned flat and his mouth went tight. He expelled a soft grunt. For Ranma to show even that much discomfort meant he must be in agony. Akane felt like she was swallowing jagged shards of rock. She just wanted this to be over so she could stop hurting him, but at the same time she never wanted it to end because then Ranma would be dead and _gone_.

Nevertheless, the energy coming from the earring slowed to a small rivulet. “Thank you,” Akane said quickly, realizing she hadn’t said that yet. Giving a jerky nod, Ranma’s blue eyes clung desperately to hers. There were too many things she hadn’t said yet, but there was no time. Despite all of the days spent by his side, it still didn’t feel like enough to carry her through the empty years to come.

The energy coming from the earring slowed to a drip. Akane braced herself for the same final disintegration, but instead the feeling morphed into something strangely sharp, wild and full of fangs and coarse fur. Ranma’s eyes shot wide and unfocused as he gasped in a breath and didn’t exhale.

She missed what he did next because a different type of jagged energy forced its way inside her body. It hurt. Quivering, Akane’s eyes shut in agony. When the pain eased a moment later, she pressed a shaking fist between her breasts, finding the skin whole despite feeling like she’d just had her torso sliced open and her organs pulled out, filled with scorching sand, and then stuffed back in haphazardly.

Somehow her finger hadn’t slipped off the remaining earring. They felt glued together until this was done. Ranma’s body jerked, wrenching her attention back to him as her finger followed the movement.

A lick of fear escaped his iron control for a second before he ruthlessly shoved it back down and gave her a shaky grimace that was probably meant to be a smile. His body flickered and paled to translucence. Feeling emotionally and physically spent, Akane breathed out a sob, but made sure to keep pulling. The final drops of Ranma’s energy threatened to split the skin from her body with the painful pressure. Despite her intention to stay stoic to the end, Akane could barely keep her watering eyes open and locked on Ranma’s.

Abruptly the pain and flow of energy stopped. The earring burned against her finger like ice and exploded into powder. Ranma Saotome disappeared between one blink and the next, leaving her alone.

Akane’s hands dropped through the suddenly empty space where both Ranma and the barrier trapping her in the hallway had stood. Disoriented, she tripped forward onto her hands and knees. They hurt. Everything hurt. Yet she also felt wonderfully strong. Shaken and grieving, Akane forced herself up onto her feet and made her solitary way down the long hallway and out into an empty, windswept plain beneath the dome of a stark white sky.

She had a job to do.

* * *

 

Opening her physical eyes an indeterminable time later, Akane found the solitude of her existence shattered. She woke up in the middle of a warzone. She was also cradled in familiar warm arms against a chest making inhuman sounds, but she couldn’t deal with that right now, so instead she focused on the chaos.

One of the walls of the large room had been blown open to the courtyard, allowing in wind, rain, and a mass of fighters. Someone had removed the children and women who’d been chained to the walls, hopefully the good guys. She didn’t see Nabiki. The prophet’s soldiers grappled with familiar male and female monks. Cats and rats clashed beneath everyone’s feet.

Ryoga unexpectedly popped into view. His fists were currently pounding into the cat man’s scarred face over and over. Staggered but not defeated, the cat man lashed out with claws of ki, slicing painful grooves across Ryoga’s chest. Akane winced, but Ryoga only went down for a second. Then he surged back to his feet and attacked again with even fiercer sledgehammer blows. The cat man hit back, slicing off the tail of the yellow bandana Ryoga tied around his head, and part of the lost boy’s hair and scalp. Akane’s breath caught in fear. Ryoga swayed but didn’t drop.

The cat man’s next hit overextended, sending him stumbling over a body on the floor and then down hard on one leg with a snarl of pain. He barely parried Ryoga next punch. Limping back from Ryoga’s advance, the cat man tilted his head awkwardly, exposing a weakness in both his leg and either vision or hearing. Seizing the advantage, Ryoga ignored the blood running down his ear and neck to leap forward and kick the cat man in side of the bad leg. As his opponent lost balance, Ryoga threw a one two combination at his face that shattered the mutated soldier’s nose and jaw, flinging him unconscious to the floor.

Feeling savage satisfaction at the sight of the cat man’s defeat, Akane bared her teeth. She’d like to see Sachi pounded into the ground like that too, but the possessed female monk was nowhere to be seen. Akane’s thoughts jumped back to her older sister, Nabiki. _What if someone hurt her while Akane hadn’t been there to protect her?_

Before Akane could get more worried, she finally spotted Nabiki. Her sister was tucked in the back of a group of female monks. Besides the unusually ragged emotion showing on Nabiki’s face, she looked fine.

Unable to avoid it any longer, Akane forced herself to look up at the body holding her so carefully. Arms like warm steel held her pressed against a muscled chest that rose and fell steadily with each breath. Of course it was Ranma. Blue eyes swept the room, but they were completely empty of any semblance of humanity. Only the cat remained. The man she loved really was gone. She’d killed him.

Grief cut painful slashes through her mind, making Akane realize that her body didn’t physically hurt at all. Running shaking fingers across her throat and down her arms, she found the skin smooth, without even the hint of a scar to remind her of the knifeblade parting her flesh. Somehow Ranma had done the impossible and healed her body along with her spirit. He really was amazing.

_Was_.

Ranma, or rather the cat spirit in Ranma’s body, looked down at her involuntary whimper. Ranma was here and yet he _wasn’t_. A tear escaped to trickle down Akane’s cheek, and then another and another. He rubbed his cheek soothingly across the top of her hair and down her cheek. Even knowing it was only Ranma’s cat side, she still felt a little better. He rubbed cheeks with her again, but fur worked better for that than skin. The contact left her cheeks feeling even wetter.

She discovered why when he leaned back to reveal equally wet eyelashes. It soothed some of the jagged ache in her chest, knowing that despite their adversarial relationship, the cat also mourned the loss of Ranma the person. Grabbing the trailing end of the sliced sleeve hanging down from her shoulder, Akane used it to dry his face and then her own.

Ranma may not be a man anymore, but at least she still had the cat. At least she had that. She’d always liked his cat side and some part of Ranma would still be with her through the long years to come. It could be worse, not by much, but considering she’d had her throat cut and almost gotten her and Ranma’s souls dragged into the demon plane for eternal torment, she was going to try and be grateful.

And stop crying. How many times had she told herself to stop crying today? Obviously not enough, because her traitorous eyes kept leaking.

A loud feline hiss jerked Ranma and Akane to their feet. They turned to see Princess, the scarred male Iriomote cat she’d once freed from a kitchen cage, racing up to them. Princess, as snarly as ever, jerked his head and meowed commandingly. Ranma- _neko_ replied with a descending growl, his chest vibrating against her body. Disconcerted, Akane shifted and reminded herself that this was her new normal. Just like Ranma was still a man even when he had boobs and red hair, so now he would always be an animal, even though he looked human. It was a painful reminder.

Ranma and Princess turned as one to glare hatefully at a tight knot of soldiers and cat women across the room. A thick carpet of rats teemed around their feet. One of the soldiers moved back and Akane saw the demon-ridden Prophet slowly walking to the front of the group. Tensing, she felt her breathing turned ragged. He looked diminished, his edges more jagged, thin, and rough than she remembered, but still dangerous, still evil and very, very dangerous.

Bracing herself for the filthy ties linking her to the demon, Akane opened her mind to see the state of her spirit. What she found shocked and confused her. The landscape of her spirit had completely changed. Disoriented, she tried to ignore everything but the demon’s corruption, those ties she’d been focusing on daily. They were gone. She looked again, but came to the same conclusion. Death and Ranma’s influence must have purified her soul. The parasitic grasp of the pearls had disappeared. The demonic fungus choking her spirit had been scoured away. She was scarred, but clean of all demonic ties.

From the largest scar she followed a nauseating echo across the room to the demon. Somehow, the tie of the fetal rats were gone from him too. The absence of the pearls left gaping, ragged wounds in shields the demon had already weakened at the start of the ritual. Despite her words to Ranma, part of Akane had still feared the demon was invulnerable. Seeing the state of him now, she felt hope.

Yet even as she examined him, she saw the demon’s shields slowly strengthening. He still had a lot of cords attached to his spirit. One of them started to pulse. Following it, she saw a soldier fighting a grizzled female monk, only to suddenly turn gray and drop to the ground in a withered heap. The monk stumbled as her punch swung through empty air. The soldier’s lifeforce shot across the room and slurped into the demon. Another cord pulsed, this one connected to the cat man on the floor, and then it too shot into the demon, leaving the cat man dead on the floor. Just like that.

Akane swallowed hard. The demon’s vulnerability wouldn’t last for much longer. He’d drain all of his soldiers and then turn to the monks and prisoners, ending up stronger than ever. She had to do something.

A group of Iriomote cats, mostly females led by a male with fur tipped silver with age, charged at the demon and his bodyguards. The cats snarled in chorus and a shimmering glow appeared around them that repelled soldier and monk alike as they moved forward. A mutated female cat soldier attacked the group with her hands extended in claws. Moving as one, the group of cats lifted their paws and swiped. The glow condensed into a giant paw shape that slammed into the cat woman and flung her body through the ceiling. The spiritual tie linking her to the demon snapped, releasing her damaged spirit to the aether.

Ducking the shower of debris and covering her head, Akane found herself sheltered beneath the curve of Ranma’s body. The broken hole in the ceiling let in a spattering of rain and the sight of a sky filled with gray clouds. Another piece of ceiling snapped, pulling down a gutter from the upper story of the building. A gush of cold water poured through the hole, drenching Akane to the skin.

Shivering despite the warm air, Akane looked over to see that Ranma had fared no better. Spikes of water-soaked hair covered his face. Releasing her, he took a step and shook his body hard, flinging water away from his body and spattering her in the process. Ignoring Akane’s squawk of anger, Ranma growled and stalked forward with feline grace. Princess the cat leapt forward to join him.

Sluicing the water from her face, Akane suddenly felt disoriented. Despite dripping with cold water, Ranma’s body was still male. She touched her wet hair to double-check that, yes, it really did feel cold. In draining all the energy from his female side, Akane must have finally broken the Jusenkyo curse.

A brittle laugh escaped her throat. The cat side wouldn’t care one way or the other, but Ranma would be so happy to know he was finally, _finally_ curse free. Akane felt an unexpected pang knowing she’d never see the fiery red hair of his female side again. She’d always known Ranma with the curse. It would take time to get used to him without it, just like it would take time to stop expecting the human instead of the cat looking out of his blue eyes.

Moving towards the demon on Ranma’s heels, Akane reminded herself to focus on the battle and her enemy. She could mourn all that she’d lost later. After they’d won.

They’d only made it halfway to their target when the energy forming around the group of Iriomote cats became a gigantic glowing cat the size of a truck. It pounced on the soldiers defending the prophet with fangs and claws bared. They desperately parried, but their blows swished through the glow without impact.

Crackling like lightning, the giant Iriomote cat tore savagely through rats and soldiers, its hits drawing blood and slicing through the ties linking human to demon. Screams and shrieks followed in its wake. Some of the soldiers dropped lifeless to the ground and others ran screaming away out into the courtyard. No one could get a hit in on the glowing cat, not even the cat women. Rats and soldiers scattered on the floor around the central figure of the Prophet like discarded pencil shavings.

Glaring at the Prophet, the glowing cat sent claws of energy flying through the air. The Prophet raised a shield of black shadow. Only one managed to get through the Prophet’s defenses. The glancing blow barely scraped along his shrivelled scalp, dribbling a small bit of dark blood across his ear.

Face twisting with anger, the Prophet lassoed his fingers through the air, gathering up the parasitic cords of his nearest soldiers in one fist and yanking their souls into the shadowy demonic maw. The wound on the Prophet’s skull healed and the blood sank back into his skin. In the sudden quiet, the demon made an obscene groan that sounded unnaturally loud, then cracked his neck from side to side and straightened his stooped shoulders. He looked refreshed.

The gigantic glowing cat lowered its head with a snarl and charged at the demon. Expression now more amused than worried, the Prophet ignored the glowing cat to focus on the tightly swirling group of Iriomote cats that had created it. He thrust a flat palm out and spit a spell.

A ball of energy the color of dirty ice shot from his hand. It exploded like a cannonball in the midst of the Iriomote cats and blew the group apart, sending cats flying end over end across the floor. The gigantic glowing cat snuffed out like a blown candle, leaving an afterimage on the back of Akane’s eyelids when she blinked. Without it, the room seemed dimmer and the shadows more menacing.

Looking around at the invaders, the Prophet laughed mockingly. Shaking back the colorful sleeves of his bugata, he flung out spindly arms and shouted, “ _Yamun_!” The spell shot through the room like a lightning bolt, sending allies and enemies alike into convulsions.

Blood filled Akane’s mouth as she bit her tongue falling to the floor. She writhed in pain. Black speckled the edges of her vision. About to pass out, she distantly heard a feline battle cry, followed by the demon’s bellow.

The pain stopped.

Panting, it took Akane a moment to find the strength to spit out the blood in her mouth and lift her head. Through watering eyes, she saw Princess hanging from the Prophet’s back. Tiara markings splattered with blood, the bruiser of a cat bit and clawed at the head of the demon, somehow managing to leave gouges in the mangy fur of the smoky rat head. The Prophet shrieked and reached back to wrench the cat off, but couldn’t seem to get a good grip on his slippery fur.

Rats ran to the Prophet and leapt into the air, latching onto Princess’s body with yellowed jaws and jagged claws. For a moment they hung from his feline body like a mangy, scrabbling fringe. Princess tried to hold on, but there were too many rats pulling him down. He slipped. His body hit the floor and was covered by attackers.

Intent on helping, Akane shouted in anger and pushed her still spasming muscles to hold her weight as she staggered to her feet. But before she could take more than a step, Ranma jumped up, shaking off a cat woman with a sharp blow that severed her connection to the demon, and leapt into the fray. Unleashing the full force of the nekoken, he sent giant claws of ki razoring across the room, shredding the rats and blasting their bodies into the air as he advanced.

A bloodsoaked Princess the cat heaved himself to his feet. One rat stubbornly clung to his back. Princess snapped his head around to grab the rat by the neck. Shaking the rodent hard enough to snap its spine, he spit it onto the floor and limped forward to stubbornly continue his attack on the rat demon.

Ranma bounded forward and swiped, sending claws of ki at his enemy. Sneering, the Prophet crossed his arms in front of his chest, forming a dark fog. The bright energy slid off it like rain skittering down an umbrella.

Releasing an animal roar, body sparking with energy, Ranma attacked the demon, kicking and punching with lightning speed and colossal strength. However, the Prophet dodged too quickly, countering with claws of dirty yellow energy that sliced bloody furrows across Ranma’s golden skin, followed by a dark blast that sent Ranma flying through the air.

Catching himself on his fingertips, Ranma twisted his body and windmilled his legs into a kick. The Prophet parried Ranma’s leg to one side with a sharp elbow and kicked Ranma hard in the side. Body bending around the force, air exploded from Ranma’s lungs as he skidded onto his back, mouth opening and closing like a fish as he desperately tried to bring in air with a paralyzed diaphragm.

Akane stumbled forward, even knowing she could do nothing more than distract the Prophet with her attack. If Ranma’s hits couldn’t get through, she didn’t have much chance of hurting him. Ranma tried to jump up onto his feet, only for his injured leg to collapse, unable to support his weight.

As Ranma fell awkwardly onto his knee, the demonic rat head snapped down towards the vulnerable arch of Ranma’s throat to tear it out with his teeth. Akane cried out and ran forward, only to trip on the body of a rat and go sprawling hard, splitting the skin of her hands and knees on the rough floor.

Flinging back her head, Akane saw the Prophet’s demon teeth snap closed mere centimeters from Ranma’s skin as Ranma threw himself to the side just in the knick of time. Despite trailing blood, Princess leapt up and clawed at the demon’s lowered head, scouring deep gouges across the previous wounds in the rat’s maw and releasing spurts of what looked like red smoke. Growling, the demon yanked Princess off by the leg and slammed the cat onto the floor.

Princess didn’t get up this time.

One of the Prophet’s mutated cat women ran forward, intent on biting the feline’s spine in two. A grayhaired Iriomote cat rammed her, making her bite miss. Two more mutated cat women converged on the space around the Prophet along with the rest of the Iriomote cats as the battle resumed. There weren’t a lot of rats left, but those who were scampered forward to join in.

Around the room, everyone finished dragging themselves upright after the demon’s spell. There weren’t as many human soldiers as Akane expected. Some had run away, but a closer look around made gorge rise up Akane’s throat. She knew the demon had been using his soldiers for energy, but she hadn’t realized just how many men he’d drained dry. Over half of his soldiers stayed sprawled on the ground, their skin papery, cheeks hollow, and eyes staring sightlessly. Horror and terror seesawed through her mind and she had to fight the compulsion to hide.

Yet the demon would do the same to her and all of them unless she stopped cowering on the floor like a ninny and got up to do her duty. Despite her efforts, she’d made no strides in getting close enough for a physical attack. Obviously she needed to change tactics and start attacking the demon on the spiritual plane. She couldn’t let Ranma’s sacrifice be in vain. She _wouldn’t_.

The fight crashed around her like a surging wave. Someone stepped on her leg with a hard boot. Crying out in pain, Akane rolled out of the way, barely avoiding getting her fingers smashed. She had to get off the floor and get closer to the demon.

Seeing the overturned throne across the way, she aimed for it. Staggering up onto her bare feet, Akane punched the nearest soldier out of her way, elbowed his friend into the path of a monk, and made her way as close to the snarling, swirling fight around the Prophet as she could get, which meant inching around all the deadly teeth and claws of the rats and cats. Ranma- _neko_ was in there somewhere, but everyone moved so quickly that she had trouble keeping track of him.

Finally Akane crouched down behind the shield of the overturned throne and opened her second sight to see iridescent lines of spirit tangled around the fighters filling the room. As delicately as possible, Akane drifted towards the pulsing miasma of the demon’s spirit and settled against his shields. Without the string of pearls to guide her search, she had to go over the entire putrid shell. It took several long, sweat-soaked moments to rediscover the small gaps in the weave connecting the demon with his human host.

Too long.

Ranma’s voice screamed in feline pain. Concentration shattered, Akane snapped back to her body. She desperately wanted to run to Ranma, but, she reminded herself, she couldn’t. It wouldn’t do any good. This was the only way she had to hurt the demon. She had to ignore the physical battle and focus on the demon’s spirit, otherwise they were all lost.

Rushing back to the spiritual plane, she fumbled the connection and fell back to her body with a jolt. Head throbbing, Akane clenched her fists. Calling on discipline and stubbornness, she stomped her way back to the spirit plane. Once there, she forced herself to calm down and stealthily return to the demon. She started fraying the edges of the largest hole she could find, snipping spiritual threads one by one to weaken the hold of the demon on his human host. She was hopefully like a mosquito, too small and insignificant to notice until she infected him with some hopefully deadly disease.

Inside the demon’s shell, energy rippled. Perhaps she was about to be swatted like a bug instead. Smothering her panic, Akane kept working. Something approached, not the demon, but a small and sickly intelligence. It didn’t attack her, merely observed her work, not that she could do much if it did attack her. Akane tried to ignore it and not lose hope, but the demon was so big and her efforts seemed so small. At the current rate it would probably take months for her to break the demon’s bond to his host body, maybe even a year.

_This wasn’t going to work._

Despair howled through her, but Akane stubbornly kept picking apart the threads as she tried to think of another way. Her mind stayed blank. She was out of great ideas.

The sickly intelligence drifted closer. Since it didn’t do anything more, she ignored it and kept working. Slowly the wisp of energy shifted into the form of a hollow-eyed young man. He looked familiar. After a moment, Akane recognized it as the demon’s human host, a sliver of the soul of the original rebel leader turned prophet.

_How sad._

Moved to compassion, Akane reached with a finger through the hole and touched his arm. The inside of the demon’s shield felt like an acid bath. Quivering with agony, she gave him a drop of her energy and then quickly snatched her finger back out.

“Please help me,” Akane whispered before she could think it through. Wincing, she hoped he wouldn’t betray her to the demon. The silhouette solidified slightly, but otherwise didn’t respond. He merely watched. Sighing in relief, Akane took up the trailing threads around the hole she’d widened and continued unravelling, trying to ignore the throbbing of her finger.

For endless moments nothing happened. Outside in the physical world, a cat wailed, a man bellowed, and a woman screamed. The demon laughed. Akane forced herself to ignore it, forced herself to suppress her worries about Ranma- _neko_ and everyone else. There was only the unwinding, thread by thread.

So focused was Akane that she almost fell back out into her body when the wisp of energy abruptly reached out through the hole and touched her hand. Startled, Akane teetered but kept herself hovering. His fingers drifted up to her wrist. When he didn’t do anything else, Akane went back to her work and tried to ignore the touch. After a few more moments, he let go and retreated backwards.

His body dissolved into a featureless column of energy. The energy split into two, then four, then eight, over and over, until she lost count. The space suddenly filled with wiggling tentacles of light. Even as they surged forward, they began to dim. Nevertheless, the tentacles pressed up against the edges of the hole, tugging, unravelling, faster and faster, until finally fading away with a sigh into a single, transparent wisp, but not before enlarging the hole until it was almost as big as Akane’s spiritual manifestation.

Looking inside the hole, Akane saw the wisp attached to an old, knotted binding. It battered at the cord ineffectually, not strong enough to break it. Akane was going to have to go inside the demon to cut it herself. Not allowing herself anymore time to think of the implications, she flung more than half of herself through the hole. Almost instantly the edges of her spirit began to bubble and burn. Whimpering with pain, she formed herself into a knife and cut the rope. The pain blunted her attack. Akane sawed at the cord stubbornly even as she became weaker and weaker. Her strength was about to give out.

Suddenly the binding snapped and the wisp flared painfully bright.

Everything convulsed.

The demon’s shields flapped wildly as if hit by gale force winds. Akane cried out. Her spirit didn’t have the strength to escape the upheaval. Then the wisp slammed into Akane, flinging both of them free of the demon’s hold.

Out of control, Akane plummeted back into her body. Gathering her strength and she forced her eyes to stay open and focus. She found Ranma- _neko_ , face bloody and teeth bared in a savage grimace, grappling with the Prophet’s convulsing body. The demon’s movements were so violent that Ranma was flung through the air, landing on the throne sheltering Akane and shattering it into kindling. She flinched away, barely missing being squashed.

The rat demon’s head bulged strangely on the Prophet’s neck, first an eye swelling grotesquely huge and then shrinking, then a nostril, and then an ear. The ghostly head flickered and then disappeared completely. The Prophet’s body collapsed without the demon’s control as the man’s body and spirit were finally freed into death. The remaining cat women also dropped to the floor like fallen dolls, their life too bound to the demon to survive without him.

Rolling over, Ranma’s snarl cut off when he noticed Akane. Cocking his head to the side, he helped lift her up to her knees and unexpectedly pressed his lips to hers in a kiss, just like that first surprise cat kiss all those years ago, but instead of simple affection, it felt like sweet regret. Little bites of static shot into her everywhere they touched.

Before she could react, Ranma jumped to his feet with feline grace and charged back at the Prophet’s unmoving body. Akane was confused until she saw the demon’s inky shadow appear over one of the rats. Fur like dirty oil, the demon’s smoky manifestation bubbled and grew to the size of a large dog.

Locking eyes with Akane, it hissed with rage and charged. The rat demon swerved around Ranma’s attack and shot towards her with deadly intent. Akane pushed herself to her feet, but had to lock her knees to keep from falling back down. Nevertheless, she raised her fists in a defensive stance.

Roaring, Ranma pivoted faster than she could follow with her eyes and leapt back through the air. One second he was facing away and the next he was landing on the fleeing rat demon’s back. Glowing with ki, Ranma raked his cat claws down the oily rat’s body.

Squealing, the rat collapsed onto his belly weakly, the smoky rat becoming less solid, almost gray. Looking savage, Ranma- _neko_ gaped his jaws to bring glowing white-blue fangs down on the back of the rat’s neck, but the weakly struggling demon suddenly twisted around with a burst of speed, turning as thick and black as tar as he savagely crunched his smoking jaws around Ranma’s chest. Red streamed down Ranma’s chest, a mix of blood and the dark red smoke of a mortally wounded spirit bleeding into the physical realm. He coughed and blood trickled down his chin.

“No!” Akane screamed. She forced her barely functioning body to move forward. She had to save him. The cat was all she had left of Ranma. She couldn’t lose him too. But before she could move more than a few feet, she found her path blocked by Iriomote cats. From every corner of the room they converged on the demon. In their rush, they knocked her back onto the ground.

Eyes hidden by his black hair and lips peeling back animalistically from his teeth, Ranma dropped his chin and sent a faint glow into his shaking arms, lifting them to lock around the demon. With the demon’s teeth buried in Ranma’s chest and Ranma’s glowing arms circling the demon’s body, the demon couldn’t dematerialize or run away. The demon flailed wildly, his legs clawing deep tracks down Ranma’s thighs. Ranma shook with strain and the light in his hands flickered. Blood spattered the ground around his body and spirals of spirit evaporated into the hot and humid air. Nevertheless, Ranma refused to let the demon escape.

Snarling like buzzsaws, the Iriomote cats converged on the trapped demon, biting deep into his exposed back. More cats piled onto his sides and legs, while others ripped at his ears and jaws. Abruptly the glow in Ranma’s hands went out. His grip fell off, arms hanging limply by his sides.

Screaming sharply, the demon rat wrenched free, roughly dislodging the cats and staggering to his feet. Ranma’s body collapsed onto the floor, disappearing behind the rush of felines. The demon spun in a circle and lashed out, but he was grossly outnumbered. No matter how many he injured or flung off, more cats appeared to fling themselves at the rat demon, crawling over their fellows in a heaving mass of black and brown fur.

Strangely, the smoky demon body seemed to become more and more solid with each additional Iriomote cat, until the small furry rat body hosting the demon had disappeared. The demon’s struggles slowed as cats crushed him beneath their combined weight, holding him with their teeth and claws. More cats circled the fight, forming a ring of fangs and fur except for a gap on one side.

Looking in that direction, Akane saw Princess limping forward, his tiara markings matted with blood, both ears shredded, and one leg almost stripped of fur. He brushed up against the other Iriomote cats on his slow progression forward, acquiring a glow that brightened with each touch, until it hurt Akane’s eyes and made them water even when she squinted. At some silent signal, the rest of the cats fell abruptly back, leaving the demon covered in gashes seeping smoke. The rat demon heaved himself to his feet.

Stopping nose to nose with the rat demon, Princess opened his mouth and roared with a sound that shook the room like a boom of thunder. The smoky outline of the demon’s body flapped, like a sheet in a gale. Princess roared again and the demon rat shot off his feet and fell onto his back. Reaching out almost daintily, Princess opened his mouth and tore out the demon rat’s throat. The demon’s body exploded into black mist. Sharp claws ripped the small rat host into pieces.

The evil black miasma condensed in midair, arrowing over the ring of cats and diving into a rat scrambling along the wall. Staggering, the rat’s fur turned coal black and began dripping acrid smoke. It shook off the transition and sprinted for the safety of a hole in the wall.

In less than a second, the demonic traits disappeared, leaving the possessed rat looking the same as all the rest of the rats suddenly running out of the room. For a second it felt like Akane’s heart stopped. _The demon was going to get away._

Body halfway through a hole in the wall, a grizzled cat’s paw unexpectedly slammed onto the rat’s haunch. Glowing razored claws yanked the rat back inside the room. The demon shrieked, the sound so deafening it sent a spike through Akane’s brain. She slapped hands over her ears. Without even a pause, the old, silver-tipped Iriomote cat gaped its jaws wide and swallowed the demon-infested rat down in a single gulp.

A wall of pressure slammed Akane belly-down onto the ground. Her lungs seized and her eyes went blind. Then, as quickly as it had started, the pressure eased. Akane’s ears popped. Dragging in a deep breath of the heavy, humid air, Akane sat up and wiped tears and sweat off her face using the trailing edge of her cut sleeve.

The elderly Iriomote cat stood next to the hole in the wall, pink tongue licking his fangs and jaw with smug pleasure. Standing up, he tossed his head and paced regally out of the room using the hole blown in the wall. All of the Iriomote cats followed him, the injured and unconscious ones supported by their faintly glowing comrades. Only then did Akane accept that the rat demon was well and truly dead. Looking around hollowly, she saw that so were many of the enemy soldiers, most of them drained dry by the demon himself.

Feeling threadbare and on the verge of unravelling, Akane pulled herself across the floor and collapsed next to Ranma. Touching her fingers to his neck, she felt for a pulse. At the same time, she opened her spiritual senses to evaluate his soul.

Dropping her head, she pulled his heavy body up onto her lap. He didn’t help with the difficult task; he couldn’t. He was dead. Man, woman... even cat were all gone now. Nothing but flesh remained. Everything inside her rebelled at the thought. She didn’t want to accept it, but the evidence was irrefutable.

_Ranma was gone._


	44. Death, Life, and Ever After

 

Ranma was gone.

_ Shouldn’t a girl get the protection of passing out at a time like this? That or the balm of insanity?  _ Too bad she really was like a gorilla, too stubborn and strong to give in to the weakness.

Akane touched Ranma’s lax face with trembling fingers. To think that she would be truly alone inside her body again. She should be ecstatic. No more demon, no more pearls, and no more arrogant and high-handed Ranma yanking her spirit to and fro. Especially no more Ranma. It was the natural state of her spirit, but it felt like an ill-fitting coat.  _ Who was Tendo Akane without Saotome Ranma?  _

She might be a gorilla, but Akane still felt the temptation to wither and fade into death. Yet Ranma expected her to live. He’d be disappointed and annoyed if she gave up so easily.  _ Did she really want to race into an eternity of insults by dying early? But how was she to survive the loss of the man she loved? How could she possibly move on without him?  _

Ranma had seemed confident that she would have no problem carrying on, but she felt weary to the bone. Once she’d found strength in anger, but right now only ashes remained of the fire once native to her personality. Instinctively she knew that forcing the rage to reignite would kill her just as surely as giving up. It would consume her for the rest of her life, the easy destructiveness pushing everyone away and preventing any hope of happiness or healing. She didn’t want to live like that either, stomping one blistering step at a time through the days and hours and seconds until she finally met him again in death.

_ So what did she have left? _ Not much but mule-headed stubbornness. Even feeling as fragile as cracked glass, she still had that. Ranma had sacrificed himself so she could live. She had to respect that by keeping herself from shattering, from just stomping stiffly through life.  _ Somehow, this stubborn gorilla had to teach herself to dance through the years to come. _

Running her fingers back through Ranma’s choppy bangs, Akane watched the strands cling to her fingers for the merest second before dropping to lie back against his head. Looping a strand of midnight hair tightly around the tip of her finger, she watched her skin turn a blotchy red. Color rushed back into her fingertip when she released the noose, blood moving to and fro beneath the skin, evidence of life. 

Ranma’s face was pale, too pale. His skin felt cool, but not cold. Some warmth yet lingered... but not for long. 

Perhaps she could will herself into the peace of insanity, just for a little while, until her stubbornness and duty were strong enough to overcome her grief. That might work. She could survive like that, her own Saotome Secret Technique of running away until she was able to return with the secret of how to live without Ranma by her side. 

Eyes closing, Akane let her head drop to rest on Ranma’s. Yet behind closed eyes, Akane had nothing to distract her spiraling thoughts. Nothing to keep the wails of grief contained and stop the fingers that wanted to tense into claws and rip out the pain. Her throat burned with the effort to keep the wails contained, as if by not screaming she might keep the acceptance of his loss at bay.

Fleeing her body, Akane fell into habit and sent her mind spinning toward the state of her soul. However, what she saw made her do a double-take. Akane forced herself to focus and looked harder. Even spiritually damaged and scarred, she should be returning to the shape of the Akane before Phoenix Mountain and Ranma’s forced binding, but... she wasn’t. 

The boundaries of her spirit bulged larger than she’d ever seen in anyone but the demon himself. A spurt of fear made her search frantically for the familiar demonic corruption, but nothing remained. All of the bonds connecting her to the demon had truly been destroyed. She was as pure as she’d been before.

Except, she realized, somehow Ranma’s original binding hadn’t completely disappeared. Despite his death, a fraying cord still collared her neck. It looped out around Ranma’s body before circling back into Akane. 

_ That made no sense.  _

Not only that, but the original cord binding the two of them shouldn’t be a loop. Every time she’d examined it, it had been a line with point A) being Ranma’s soul and point B) being Akane’s. If the cord was circling back into Akane… could Ranma’s soul still be here? But that wasn’t possible _. Was it? _

What if he’d somehow hidden part of his soul inside hers before the earring took it all? Yet Ranma had been determined to die to fulfill the prophecy and bring her back to life. He wouldn’t have risked her life and victory over the demon to try and save himself.  Ranma’s spirit had been completely consumed. She’d  _ seen  _ it disappear. She’d been  _ responsible _ .

_ Stop being stupid, Akane, _ she ordered. She was lying to herself again, creating false hopes. In fact, she was probably just seeing what she wanted to see in the strange bulging of her spirit. Maybe this was merely what a soul always looked like after escaping demonic possession.

Maybe… but maybe not. 

Hadn’t Miaka once said something about looping? Not in her second prophecy, but in the first, the one in the middle of the train station all those long months ago. Pulling up the memory, she thought of how Miaka’s fingernail had stabbed into the center of Akane’s palm and drawn circles, over and over until blood rose to the surface of her skin. Then Miaka had said, "For the mother, looping is the only hope. You've already looped back. Accept the loop between, remember to loop forward." 

Akane had thought that prophecy had been talking about what had already happened during their first kidnapping on Iriomote Island, but what if it had actually been talking about now? What if Miaka had been trying to give her a chance to save Ranma? But how had his spirit escaped death when she’d used the earrings to drain him dry?

Akane’s eyes shot open to look at the body in her arms.  _ Ranma’s human side wouldn’t risk it, but his cat side might. _ That feline had always been contrary when it came to human Ranma’s wishes, especially when it came to her. No matter how human Ranma was acting at the time, the cat always made it clear that he adored Akane and wanted her happy. Plus, she’d felt that flash of fur and teeth right before Ranma’s male side had disappeared with the earring, and then the strange static in Ranma- _ neko _ ’s final kiss. That could have been him somehow stuffing Ranma’s human soul inside her for safekeeping.

It was still a fool’s hope, but she had to try to  _ “loop forward,”  _ whatever that meant. Nevertheless, she’d figure it out. Akane was a martial artist. This was simply another technique to master, right? She would not fail.

Praying for a miracle, Akane began her battle for Ranma’s life. Ripping out strands of her soul to reinforce the fraying cord looped around her neck, she braided in the new energy around Ranma’s empty body. If this worked, his body wouldn’t stay empty for long. Rushing to the spot where she’d once rested in the woven hammock of Ranma’s spirit, she found the weave collapsed between the two “trees” of her spirit. Ranma’s tattered spirit threads only clung to one of the posts, but... he wasn’t yet gone.

_ Ranma wasn’t yet gone. _

Not letting herself stop to sob in gratitude or second guess what she had to do, Akane sharpened her will into an axe and chopped down the tree empty of Ranma’s strands with one mighty blow. The pain was excruciating, beyond anything she’d ever experienced. The edge of her consciousness shrieked and threatened to drag her down into nothingness. 

Akane clung stubbornly to the pain. She couldn’t afford to pass out. There was too much to do. She had to be like the gorilla Ranma always called her in jest.

Turning, she threw the post of her spirit like a harpoon into Ranma's breastbone. Ranma’s physical body convulsed. Black spots crowded Akane’s physical eyes and her thoughts grew sluggish. If she passed out this would all be for naught. She had to hold on.

_ I am...stronger...than a...gorilla! _

Ignoring the agonizing pain, Akane wrenched open the remaining “tree” in her soul where several of Ranma's spirit threads still clung stubbornly. Many had fallen at its base, their threads grown brittle and dim. Scooping up all that she could find, Akane shoved the ends back inside her tree, knotted them all together, slathered them in the sap of her spirit, and sewed it shut. 

Scooping up the other side of the once-hammock threads, she twisted them into a bundle of rope and heaved them towards Ranma's body. She was too close to passing out for anything fancier. The threads looped round and round Ranma’s chest, caught on her harpoon, and stuck, leaving a suspension bridge connecting their spirits. 

Before Akane could celebrate and allow herself to rest, she saw the taunt cords begin to go slack. Frantic, she realized that Ranma’s spirit was sinking through the fabric of his dead body instead of holding fast. Calling on sewing skills she’d honed over years of patching the tears in her ripped up school backpack, like her favorite cat-shaped patch, Akane made a needle out of her soul and began sewing the thread up and down between Ranma’s body, his spirit, and her tree harpoon until everything stabilized and his spirit stopped sinking. 

Exhausted, with agony shooting bolts sharply through every mote of her being, she grabbed the bridge she had looped between them and pushed it with the last of her strength. Akane watched through tunneling vision as the spiritual bridge swung up, hovered for a second, and then flopped back down without quite completing the rotation overhead. Her push hadn’t been enough to make the necessary loop around both their bodies and she was completely spent. Not only that, but the lingering force of the swinging bridge threatened to rip the barely repaired cords away from Akane, truly severing her connection to Ranma’s body and soul for the rest of her life.

_ She’d failed. _

However, Akane had forgotten to account for Ranma’s possessiveness. Even mostly dead, Ranma would never let go of Akane. He couldn’t. As long as the merest wisp of his soul survived, he would hang on tight. That’s why they’d had to use the earrings, because he was incapable of letting her go even when trying to save her life. Feeling the impending separation of their souls, everything in him rose up in protest.

_ Akane is mine!  _

Ranma’s fighting spirit roared out into the aether like an exploding volcano, sending the bridge whipping up, flipping it around to loop around both their bodies and spirits. However, it didn’t stop there. The bridge whirled faster and faster, feeding on the vibrations of their lives and the echoes of their deaths until the gestalt of energy formed an all-encompassing sphere that bound Akane and Ranma into one and forced harmony and congruence, not just with itself, but with the universe as a whole.

Akane saw her body and spirit intertwined with Ranma’s body and spirit, felt his stubbornness over her, her possessiveness of him, and the strength and sweetness of their love. Everything became clear. She saw the ki connections of every living thing everywhere. Thoughts of atoms and planets, grasses and galaxies whizzed through her. 

Akane couldn’t comprehend or contain it for more than a split-second. The perfection was too big, too much for someone so young and small, when even the Earth was too young and small. So much beauty. So much love. Simple and complex and pure. Too many colors. The rainbow grew brighter and brighter until everything turned to white. Akane floated in the white.

Landing softly back in her body, Akane slowly opened her eyes and blinked with sublime peace. She saw ceiling boards. Dust motes floated in beams of sunlight breaking through the clouds to pour in through the holes in the ceiling. Her body lay twisted awkwardly on the hard wooden floor, but besides the mild discomfort of the position, and despite the many physical and spiritual wounds she’d sustained today, nothing hurt. She'd been completely healed. 

Pushing herself up on her arms, Akane looked down and found herself curled protectively around Ranma’s body. He  was breathing. Akane blinked. Leaned closer. Watched his chest move up and down, noted the flush of his cheeks and the gentle movement behind his eyelids. Saw the throbbing pulse in his neck, all signs of life. They'd done it. Together, they'd both survived and won.

Akane breathed out slowly and smiled.

* * *

 

.

.

.

**EPILOGUE**

Unfortunately, her moment of quiet elation was almost immediately interrupted. “Thank goodness you’re okay, Akane!” Ryoga cried. His arms grabbed her from behind in a choking hug before just as quickly releasing. “But Ranma! Oh, Ranma!” Face puffy from numerous hits to the head and copious crying, Ryoga dropped to his knees and awkwardly swept Ranma up in his arms, clutching Ranma to his chest and bawling. “At least he died a man instead of a girl, but poor Ranma! Wah!”

Opening his eyes, Ranma demanded flatly, "What are you doing?" 

Head shooting up, Ryoga’s grief-ravaged face lit up with shock and joy. "Ranma, you're alive! And Akane’s alive! I’m so happy!" Ryoga burst once more into tears.

Ranma squirmed out of Ryoga’s arms, patting him hard on the back to get more room. "Thanks, man, but you're getting me all wet. Get a hold of yourself. Where’s Aka—” craning his head around, Ranma’s words cut off as Akane leaned forward to catch his attention and met his eyes with a private, close-lipped smile filled with joy. 

“Hey, you,” Ranma said, gravel in his throat and eyes going suspiciously damp. 

Smile widening into a grin even as her own eyes filled, Akane blinked hard and swallowed. “Hey, you, back.” Reaching out, Ranma took her hand and pulled them both to their feet just as several familiar monks joined them. He squeezed her hand and gave her a complex look that said they’d have to discuss things soon, but that until then she wasn’t getting out of his sight. She didn’t mind. 

“I’m impressed by you two,” said Mariko. The mature, battle-scarred monk Akane had first met through the bars of a cage would have a few new scars from today’s battle, but her shoulders were still unbowed. She clapped Akane approvingly on the shoulder, sending Akane rocking forward onto her toes. Akane couldn’t help but flush in pleasure at the compliment.

“I agree,” added Kazuya-san, the elderly monk who had trained Ranma in Martial Arts Geometry. “I thought the boy was too stupid to retain what I taught him for long—” Kazuya-san completely ignored Ranma’s squawk of offense, “—but in all my years I’ve never seen such masterful use of Martial Arts Geometry to heal someone else with congruence.” Bowing his bald head to Ranma, the monk said, “The teacher is humbled by the student.” 

Ranma’s open-mouthed surprise quickly morphed into a cocky smirk, “Thanks, old man, but you shoulda known better than to bet against me. I am the best martial artist in the world, after all,  _ and  _ I’ve still got my youth and good looks. In fact—”

The second Ranma’s boasting sent his eyes flickering up toward the sky, Kazuya-san lifted his forearm perpendicular to his chest and gave a quick shove, sliding his foot in a perfect arc at Ranma’s ankles at the same time. Ranma fell onto his back. “What was that for, ya old windbag?” Ranma scowled, rising up on his elbows.

“Boasting is an ugly trait, my boy, especially in front of the pretty ladies,” Kazuya-san sent a flirtatious smile at Akane and the female monks, exposing brown-stained teeth. They all carefully shifted back a step, but he didn’t seem bothered as he turned back to the prone Ranma. “Besides,” he sent a poke of ki at Ranma that made him flinch with annoyance, “your defense could still use some work. After all, you did die during this battle. Just saying.” He sent a snap kick at Ranma’s thigh, but Ranma rolled out of the way with a glare and jumped to his feet, though not before snapping an elbow at the old man’s calf that made the monk stagger and then grunt in surprised approval.

“Speaking of Ranma getting sliced open and killed gruesomely by the demon,” interjected Aoi, her gray-threaded pixie cut looking spiky with drying sweat and rain. She didn’t seem to notice the appalled looks her words generated. “Just how did you bring him back to life, Akane? I assume he healed you by somehow using that spiritual slave collar he put on the first time you died, but I don’t see how you got it to work in reverse.” 

Wiping his tear-wet face off on his sleeve, Ryoga said through a stuffy nose, “Yeah, how did you do that, Akane?” Then the lost boy’s face scrunched up in thought. “Wait, you’ve died before today? And Ranma enslaved you somehow?” His face began darkening with anger and his hands fisted by his sides with a familiar dark glow.

Rolling her eyes, Akane sighed. “That’s way old news, Ryoga, and none of your business. Don’t worry about it. As for Ranma, do you think I'd let that idiot die before me if I had any say in the matter?” 

Meeting Ranma’s eyes, Akane quirked her brow. “He unknowingly used the Saotome Secret Technique to run and hide a bit of himself inside my spirit, so I invaded his dead body, made my own space, and then flung most of his spirit back into it." 

Mouths dropping open in horror, the listening monks all went gray in comprehension. Mariko shook her head slowly, "You've completely compromised your souls. Who even knows how this forced mingling will affect your karma and future reincarnations? It is anathema to even contemplate such an act.” 

“Didn't it hurt?" Aoi asked with a look of appalled fascination.

Akane smiled, "Like I was gouging myself open with a plastic toddler spoon, trying to dig my pulsing organs out with broken fingers, shoving them back inside using only my elbows, and then stitching myself shut with barbed wire held in cavity-filled teeth." Everyone flinched and looked even more horrified. A few of the younger monks turned away, hands over their mouths and faces gone green.

Ranma appeared next to Akane and flung his arm over her shoulder proudly. "That's my fiancee. She's tougher than a gorilla and she loves me!"

Sucking on a tooth sourly, Mariko asked, "And you’re both okay with this? It's a violation. We’d have to examine you both to be sure, but it sounds like this spiritual tie is even more invasive than what Ranma first did to Akane. Don't you want us to try and remove it before it settles?" 

“She’s got a point, sonny,” Kazuya-san said mildly, brow creasing. “It’s just not natural.”

Beneath their censuring looks, Akane felt herself begin to wilt. She turned her head to look questioningly up at Ranma. 

Who  _ growled,  _ a baleful sound that made the hair on her arms stand up straight and the people around them freeze. "Don't even think about it," Ranma said harshly. Menace turned his eyes into shards of blue ice and the planes of his face into blades. Hand tightening around Akane’s shoulders to bring her deeper into the protective curve of his body, he glared at the monks. “You touch it and I’ll kill you.” His every word dripped with sincerity and threat.

Then Ranma’s mood turned on a dime. The menace disappeared from his face as if it had never been. Ranma dropped a kiss on Akane’s cheek, pulled back, and gave her a boyish grin. Turning to Ryoga, his voice dripping with false modesty, Ranma tossed his hair back and boasted, "If the woman needs me that much, who am I to say no?"

"Who needs who now?" Akane asked with sudden irritation, trying unsuccessfully to push his arm off her shoulders. 

Immediately Ranma turned back, his carefree expression peeling away to reveal the savage warrior inside. "I do. I need you, Akane. You know that and you know that you need me too. I can feel it. What we both just did proves it. You bound yourself to me. Are you gonna take that back now?"

Huffing, Akane reached up and flicked Ranma in the forehead. He flinched back, but before the hurt and anger could fully coalesce on his face, she leaned up and kissed the pouting jut of his lower lip. Sliding her hand around his neck, she grabbed his braid and yanked him down so he couldn’t escape the look in her eyes. "Of course I'm not going to take it back. I do need you, Ranma-you-idiot. Living without you would be hollow and stale and  _ awful _ . I love you. We belong together, till death do us part and probably not even then. Right?"   

A tender smile tilted Ranma's lips. "Right. Till death do us part and then only long enough for us to kick down the walls and destroy everything trying to keep us apart. I love you, Akane. I'll love you forever."

"Th-that sounds like wedding vows!" Ryoga stuttered, breaking their bubble of intimacy and the deep kiss Akane was about to initiate after Ranma’s declaration. She silently promised to reward him (and herself) with it later. Besides, she hadn’t clawed up his back in ages.

As they pulled apart, Ranma muttered, "I wish," with a wistful sigh, keeping her from moving far by the iron grip on her hand. If they were alone, he’d go into more detail about what he wanted to do on their hopefully soon honeymoon to see if he could make her cheeks blush, instead of her teasing words always getting his face to go red, but he’d have to save those intimacies for later. What he wanted to say wasn’t meant for any ears but hers.

More people had joined the group, including Nabiki. "Oh r _ ea _ lly?" Nabiki asked Ranma with a skeptically raised brow. Cool facade cracking for a second, she engulfed Akane in a bruisingly tight hug, but stepped back before the surprised Akane could reciprocate. Nabiki usually hated public displays of affection, at least in herself. Of course, she didn’t mind them in others as long as she had her camera ready to record blackmail material.  

Stepping back from Akane, Nabiki rebuilt her mask of cool skepticism. Turning to Ranma, she asked archly, "You're actually going to marry Akane this time? What would that make, wedding attempt number four? Or five?"

If she expected stuttering from Ranma, she wasn't going to get it. Ranma was through denying his love and need for Akane several deaths ago. Meeting Nabiki’s skeptical gaze straight on, he firmly declared, "Yes. I'm going to marry Akane this time, no matter who or what tries to stop us."

Yanking her hand free, Akane planted her hands on her hips and turned to face him with an annoyed scowl. "Then ask me for once instead of just assuming."

"Wh-what?" he asked, knocked off balance by the fierceness in her face. Didn’t she want to marry him?

"Ask. Me." Akane enunciated clearly, her magnificent and proud brown eyes flashing.

Nodding sharply, Ranma dropped to his knees, put his fists on his thighs, and humbly bowed his shoulders and head. "Tendo Akane, will you do me the great honor of becoming my wife?" The following beat of silence made sweat bead on the exposed back of his neck. 

Then Akane spoke one simple and sublime word, "Yes." 

Joy shot Ranma’s heart up into the clouds. Grinning, he met Akane’s beaming face and couldn't help but laugh with happiness. Jumping to his feet, he lifted her up in his arms and spun her around in celebration. Akane shouted out with joy. Putting her hands on his cheeks, she leaned down and met his laughing mouth in a kiss. Ranma’s spin ended as he concentrated on the taste and feel his future wife’s lips.

“So,” interrupted a smirking Nabiki, "just when is this next wedding going to take place." 

"Today," Ranma decided, suddenly unable to wait a single second more as he slid Akane down to her feet. Besides, he didn’t want to give Nabiki time to sell the information and invite the usual trouble. He wouldn’t stand for another interrupted wedding.

"Today?" Akane squeaked, eyes going wide.

"Now," Ranma demanded, leaning back to look into her face. "Come on, we're practically married already with the spiritual ties looping us together. This is just a formality."

"An important formality," she argued weakly.

"Which is why I don't want to wait anymore. Akane, I want you as my wife," he said bluntly. 

Cheeks red but eyes glowing, Akane took a quick breath and laughed. "Alright."

Part of Ranma hadn’t actually expected her to agree without a whole lot more argument. "Really?” he asked.

Meeting his eyes confidently, she nodded. “Yes, really. I want you as my husband too. Let's get married, Ranma."

Heart obviously breaking a little, Ryoga dashed tears from his eyes. "But how?"

Nabiki threw her hands up into the air. "Sure, why not? We're surrounded by monks. I'm sure one of them can do a Buddhist ceremony. When we get back home they can have a big reception to rake in the presents.” 

Rubbing her hands, she turned to Akane with a mercenary gleam in her eye, “You could even do a shinto wedding and then a western one to rake in triple presents and allow the parents to participate. Don’t worry, I’ll get my people to organize everything.” Ignoring the dubious looks on their faces, Nabiki turned to survey the bustling room, where monks secured prisoners and helped injured friends. “So, which one of these monks do you want to do it?" They started moving towards the exit.

"Oh, me!" squealed a bruised and black-eyed Sachi as she popped up out of nowhere next to Mariko and Aoi. "Me me me! I want to do it! I love weddings."

The second Sachi appeared, Ranma thrust himself in front of Akane and growled savagely. Akane, Nabiki, and Ryoga joined him in glaring. If looks could kill, Sachi would be nothing but a smear on the floor considering the anger in the air. The other female monks looked nervously between the Nerima contingent and their friend, shuffling closer to Sachi defensively. 

Akane poked Ranma hard in the back over and over until he finally gave a painful grunt and let her move up to stand by his side. She narrowed her eyes at Sachi and counted to ten. She knew the woman had been possessed, but still. _ The nerve! _ Teeth gritted and muscles jumping painfully in her jaw, Akane bit out, "You tried to kill my sister. You slit my throat. Not only NO, but  _ hell _ to the  _ no _ !"

Sachi prostrated herself on the ground. "It wasn't my fault, I was demon ridden. I'm sorry!" she wailed. None of them responded to her plea. Taking a gulping breath, she abruptly seemed to shrivel in on herself and run out of steam. “I am sorry,” she whispered. Perky mask falling away, Sachi began rocking back and forth on her knees. When she glanced up, her face looked tormented: eyes hollow, wrinkles pronounced, and lips colorless. She looked more like a woman in her sixties than one in her forties. “I wish none of it had happened and I’m so glad you’re somehow okay. I am so so sorry for all of it,” Sachi apologized again in a wretched tone of voice, “truly.”  

Feeling a pang of compassion in her heart, Akane bit her lip. In that moment, she believed in Sachi’s sincerity. She might never be able to forget the cruelty and terror, but with time she thought she could forgive. After all, Sachi had been a victim too. She’d probably been just as scared as the rest of them. Akane met Sachi’s eyes and felt her hostility dissolve. “I’m sorry too,” Akane said softly, nodding to let the woman know understood.

However, Ranma wasn’t feeling so forgiving. When he blinked, he could still see Akane’s spurting blood, could still feel the slack weight of her body in his arms and the anguish of her death. He wouldn’t hurt the woman because she hadn’t been in charge of her actions, he had that much honor, but he could barely stand to look at her either.

Mariko sighed and rubbed her friend’s back, placing herself protectively in front of Sachi. "Nevertheless, maybe another choice would be more fortuitous. Perhaps Kazuya-san, Saotome's teacher?" As Mariko spoke, Aoi lifted Sachi to her feet, wrapped a loving and supportive arm around her sister-monk’s shoulder, and pulled her away to join a group of female monks leaving the room.

“I would be honored,” Kazuya-san said with a flattered smile, “as long as that’s okay with the bride and groom?” He looked over. “If you’re not going to fix your spiritual entanglement, the least you can do is get married by someone as venerable as me.”

Blowing out a breath, Ranma met Akane’s eyes and tilted his head in inquiry. “Yeah?”

“Okay, but,” Akane looked around at the ruined room with a grimace, “not in here.”

“No, definitely not,” Ranma agreed fervently, tucking her hand in his arm and moving toward the hole in the wall leading to the courtyard.

“The jungle outside is nice,” Mariko suggested. 

“Good enough. If we’re going to do this, then let’s do this,” Akane said with a firm nod. Her chin tilted stubbornly as they came out into the courtyard. The rain had stopped and patches of sunlight had broken through the disappearing clouds, drying the mud. All of the surviving soldiers (the few who hadn’t been sucked dry by the demon) were chained up in the back of trucks that were pulling out of the gate as they came out. The monks would make sure that justice was served.

Against the wall by the front gate stood the kidnapped group of village women and children. Thankfully all of Akane’s kids were there, looking uninjured. As Akane sighed in relief, Hiroko looked up and saw her. The girl’s face broke into a beaming smile. Knuckling tears out of her eyes, she elbowed Arata. The other children caught on and turned to look. Seeing Akane, they waved enthusiastically while explaining her to their aunts and mothers with big gestures. 

It gave Akane an idea. Letting go of Ranma’s arm, she clambered up on top of a parked truck. The slits cut up either side of the robe at least made it easy to lift her legs and climb, even if the flapping fabric made her think about something she’d rather forget. Pushing the memory of the knife cutting through her clothes and skin away, Akane cupped her hands around her mouth and bellowed, “Hey, everybody!” The people in the courtyard startled and turned to look at her. Akane cried out, “We won!” Everyone broke into laughter and cheers. Grinning, Akane continued. “To celebrate, Ranma and I are getting married out in the jungle. Anybody who wants to come can join us there in…,” she looked down at him and asked,” fifteen minutes?” At his nod, she turned and shouted, “Fifteen minutes!” 

The kids jumped up and down and broke into happy screams. “Yay for Akane! Yay for Ranma!” Although they’d never met him, Akane had told them all sorts of tales about Ranma during their captivity. Arata in particular had loved the stories. The young boy was gazing at Ranma with hero-worship in his eyes and would probably corner him later for an autograph.

Hopping down from the truck, Akane met Ranma’s grin. “Shall we, m’lady?” he asked with a sweeping bow.

“Not so fast,” Nabiki interrupted, jerking her sister away from Ranma and curling her lip. “You can’t get married wearing  _ that _ . Akane’s in some cheap, sliced-up sacrificial robe and you’re wearing only muddy boxers and a tank top, the same stinky clothing you’ve probably been wearing for days. We’re going to make the most of those fifteen minutes to clean you two up at least a little for your wedding.” 

Gesturing imperiously at a male monk Akane vaguely recognized, she had him trotting over within seconds. “Rei, isn’t it?” Nabiki asked. 

“Yes, ma’am,” he said with a blush, despite looking a couple of years older than Nabiki.

“You’re attractive and well-put together,” his blush deepened at Nabiki’s words and appreciative appraisal. “Can I trust you to clean Ranma up and find him some new clothes for his wedding in fifteen minutes?”

“Of course,” Rei squared his shoulders, “you can count on me.” Reaching out, he grabbed Ranma’s arm and began towing him away, ignoring Ranma’s plaintive, “Hey!” Before Ranma disappeared around the corner, he met Akane’s eyes and mouthed, “Fifteen minutes,” not breaking his gaze until she nodded.

Rubbing her chin and looking Akane up and down, Nabiki sighed. “As for you, we’re going to need a miracle. Women’s clothing is going to be hard to find, though the female monks may have a spare set of pants and a clean shirt we can have. Not exactly classy, but beggars can’t be choosers.”

“I can help with clean clothes,” Ryoga said with forced cheer as he trotted over with his huge yellow backpack. His eyes were hurting, but he seemed determined to act the role of supportive friend. Akane couldn’t deal with his acting like a jealous idiot today, so she really appreciated it. They might not have won without his help, so she was going to be grateful and hope for the best for their friendship. This would be their chance to turn over a new leaf.

Dropping his bag with a thump at their feet, Ryoga opened the top flap and began digging. She shook her head on seeing that he still had a runcible spoon and pair of plastic water wings in there. “I traded a fancy comb for what I thought was a big lunch box in either Paris or Wellington, but when I opened the box, it turned out to be a kimono. I never wear them, so you’re welcome to have it, Akane.” Pulling out a cardboard box with dented corners, he passed it to Akane. The sticker on the lid said,  _ Hand-crafted and sold in Kyoto.  _ Not France or New Zealand.

“Thank you, Ryoga.” Akane gave him a grateful smile, not bothering to correct him on location. No matter how horrible the robe looked, at least it would be fresh and untainted by association with the rat demon. Bracing herself for a masculine tourist robe in something awful like fluorescent orange or lime green, Akane peeled back the tissue paper and froze in surprise.

“Oh, wow,” Nabiki breathed. “That’s very promising. Let’s try it on.” 

Grabbing a smaller backpack from another truck, Nabiki set them up in a bathroom that had thankfully just been cleaned, based on the bucket of supplies still sitting in the hallway outside the door. Keeping the door slightly cracked because of the stifling temperature in the small room, Akane stripped off the hated white robe and scrubbed herself briskly at the sink. A female monk in the hall kept everyone else away. 

Sitting on the closed toilet lid, Nabiki opened the box. Her eyebrows went up in pleased surprise as she folded back the tissue paper and went digging. “This really is perfect. I wonder what other treasures Ryoga has hiding in that ratty old backpack? I bet he’d sell them to me for a bag of roasted chestnuts.”

“Nabiki,” Akane scowled, “you shouldn’t take advantage of Ryoga.”

“Why not?” Nabiki asked breezily as she passed Akane the obviously expensive kimono and ordered, “Put this on.” The fabric had been dyed ombre, with a dark rose pink at the hem flushing up to pale pink at the hips before transitioning to pure ivory. The traditional long sleeves of a maiden fell to the knees had been dyed to match the ombre of the kimono. “The usual inner layers are missing, but the box has the outer kimono, obi, and a gauzy, embroidered outer shell. You really lucked out today, Akane.” 

Slipping the soft fabric over her shoulders, Akane couldn’t help but agree. The obi was a dusky pink that matched the bottom of the kimono. Nabiki tied the obi bow in the small of Akane’s back and fluffed the fabric. “You know, for once I think you might actually manage to get through a wedding ceremony. Being secretly kidnapped to a remote and barely inhabited island certainly helps, but maybe you and Ranma’s bad luck really has finally broken.” Coming around to the front, Nabiki adjusted the obi and gave Akane a tight smile hiding a wealth of emotion. “I’m just so glad you’re alive, Akane. You’re the heart of our family.”

Sniffling, Akane lunged, giving her big sister a hug before she could think to escape. “I’m glad you’re alive too. It was touch and go for both of us there for a little bit.”

“If I didn’t mention it, thanks for saving my life, little sis,” Nabiki choked out. Then she pulled back and wiped her face. “Phew, enough of this emotional crap. We have a wedding to get to and the clock is ticking. Unless you want to wait so I can rake in some more money when we get back home?”

“No!” Akane firmly refused.

Shrugging, Nabiki pulled out the last piece from the box, a gauzy outer robe meant to go over the kimono. “Woah.” Akane’s mouth dropped open on seeing the hand-embroidered flowers and vines in white, cream, lilac, pink, and coral that covered most of the transparent white fabric. The cost of the outfit had just shot up exponentially.

“Yeah, I’m definitely trading him those chestnuts for more of this ‘useless’ stuff,” Nabiki agreed with dollar signs in her eyes. She helped Akane pull the embroidered robe on and position the sleeves, securing it with a small bow on the hip. 

While Akane finger-combed her short hair in the cracked bathroom mirror, Nabiki opened her bag and pulled out a casual change of clothes for herself. Shutting the door only long enough to change, she opened it again and fanned it several times to waft fresh air into the room. Reaching into her bag again, Nabiki pulled out a tube of lipstick. Akane shook her head. “You actually brought makeup on a rescue mission to the jungle?”

Nabiki shrugged. “It doubles as a spy camera, which is lucky for you since that means I can take your wedding photographs today. Now purse your lips and hold.” Nabiki smoothed lipstick over Akane’s lips and then did her own. Securing the lipstick into one pocket, she stepped out into the hallway and looked Akane up and down with a smirk. “Nice. Today really is a day of miracles. You’re almost at pretty as me and, without the inner kimono layers, you’ve got a sweet yet naughty thing going on. Ranma’s gonna swallow his tongue. I bet he’ll be hoping you’ll wear just that gauzy robe on the honeymoon.” She wagged her eyebrows salaciously.

“Nabiki!” Akane squawked in embarrassment.

Throwing her head back in laughter, Nabiki grabbed Akane’s arm and pulled. “Now come on or we’re going to be more than fashionably late, my little innocent.” 

Face completely red, Akane followed her sister out the door and down the hall. However, her lingering blush wasn’t caused by innocence. It was was caused by wicked thoughts about her upcoming honeymoon and all of the theoretical knowledge she’d finally get to try out on Ranma. Hopefully he’d be a quick study. If not, she knew just how dedicated he was to daily practice.

Fanning her face, Akane came outside to see a waiting group of female monks along with the children and other kidnapped villagers. They exclaimed at the beauty of her kimono as they escorted her out the gate and into the jungle. The children cheerfully skipped along on either side. A gentle breeze stirred the fresh-smelling air and made the temperature feel comfortable instead of stiflingly hot. 

As they plunged into the trees, the compound quickly disappeared from view. Within a year, maybe less, the jungle would reclaim the land and destroy those buildings forever. The thought filled Akane with cold satisfaction.

Within a couple of minutes, they came out of the trees into a sunlit clearing packed full of monks. Blinking in surprise, Akane saw that it was also scattered with Iriomote cats lazily sunning themselves in the branches of the surrounding trees. Ranma was currently hidden from view, so her attention turned to the beautiful scenery. 

Water droplets caught the sunlight and sprinkled on the grass like a field of stars. The recent rain made the jungle colors pop: the greens looked deeper, the browns more velvet, and the flower petals like gemstones. Flowering bushes ringed the clearing in colors matching her wedding kimono, delicate pink blossoms with golden throats. Bright profusions of orange, red, and yellow flowering vines dangled beneath the lounging Iriomote cats like trailing kimonos worn by balcony-watching spectators. The luscious perfume of the exotic flowers twined deliciously through the air with the scent of the recent rain.

Giving a boisterous cheer, the women and children left her on the edge of the clearing and joined the crowd. Everyone broke into a song of celebration as the crowd split to each side, leaving an open pathway down the center of the clearing. Seconds later, Ryoga shoved Ranma into view next to the waiting Kazuya-san and stepped back. Someone pushed a bouquet of flowers into her hands with a childish giggle, but she couldn’t look away from Ranma long enough to identify them. 

As soon as Akane met Ranma’s eyes, everything else disappeared. As usual, the sight of Ranma took her breath away. With his dark hair burnished with red highlights by the sun, blue eyes as sparkling and clear as aquamarines, and muscular body leaning forward with barely-restrained emotion, it was all Akane could do to keep from running forward and flinging herself into his arms. 

While she’d been dressing, Rei had found Ranma a pair of sandals, black pants, and a blue shirt. The pants were slightly short at the ankle and the shirt strained across the bulging muscles of his shoulders and arms, but Ranma was still the most handsome man she’d ever seen. The imperfections let her know that this wasn’t a dream. It was real and in just a few moments, Ranma would finally be her husband and she would be his wife.

Looking thunderstruck at her approach, Ranma stared unblinking as she walked to his side. His face turned red as he stood stiffly, drinking her in with his eyes. Not bothering to hide her smirk, Akane ordered, “ _ Breathe _ , Ranma, or you’re going to pass out.”

Gulping in air, he laughed sheepishly and reached out to take her hand. “You look... just—wow. Wow, Akane. How you manage to look so beautiful after all that when I still look like a total wreck, I’ll never know, but I’m so glad that I get to marry you, that you’re mine. Wow.”

Beaming up at him, Akane squeezed his hand. “You could be dressed in only a rice sack and I’d still think you the most gorgeous man I’ve ever met. I’d probably point at your bony knees and laugh at you first, but I’d still want you. I’ll always want you.”

Pressing his lips together, Ranma swallowed hard. “Then I guess we’re both pretty lucky that we’re stuck together from now on, yeah?”

“Yeah,” Akane breathed as Ranma leaned down and pulled her close. It was hard to believe that this was finally happening.

“AHEM,” Kazuya-san cleared his throat loudly and gave them a stern look. “Wait till after the vows, kids.”

As the crowd laughed, Ranma and Akane blushed in concert and turned to face the old monk.  His stern face broke into a grin. “You’ll get lots of that action soon enough anyways, eh?” Despite her face turning even hotter, Akane couldn’t help but join in on the laughter. She was just so happy.

Pressing his hands together in an attitude of prayer, Kazuya-san looked calmly out at the crowd until everyone had quieted down. “We are gathered here together to publicly join the hearts and lives of two good people: Saotome Ranma and Tendo Akane. Out of the routine of ordinary existence they’ve found the extraordinary in each other. Only Buddha knows the paths their joined souls will tread into the eternities, but here and now we witness their intention to tread the path with love, joy, and mutual sacrifice. Through this action, they reach for enlightenment by perfecting their kindness and compassion toward each other and world around them. Marriage is not a static state of being, it is an action requiring constant dedication and practice.”

Expectant silence filled the clearing as the monk turned his gaze on Ranma and Akane. His lips curved in a subtle smile. “I’m not going to bother asking the crowd for objections to your marriage, since I don’t want to jinx how well things are going and I know the boy is a trouble-magnet. Besides, I hate it when weddings get interrupted. If you’ve gotten this far, I’ll assume the young lady knows what she’s getting into. I have a fascinating twenty minute speech continuing on about the philosophical role of marriage in reaching enlightenment,” Akane locked her knees while Ranma stifled a groan, “but since they boy’s too dim to understand and the majority of the audience is either too tired to listen or already seeking the path without a partner, I’ll let us all skip to the main event.” He gave a toothy grin at their open sighs of relief. 

“Saotome Ranma, do you take Tendo Akane to be your wife and one true partner in life and love, cherishing her for today, tomorrow, and forever?” Kazuya-san asked.

Looking down into her face, Ranma’s blue eyes shone with the fierceness of his devotion. “Yes, I do. Forever,” he vowed, his voice shaking with strong emotion. Akane felt like she’d burst with joy at the torrent of love pouring down their bond. She could  _ feel _ his adamant vow resonate through her soul.

Kazuya-san shifted to face her. “Tendo Akane, do you take Saotome Ranma to be your husband and one true partner in life and love, cherishing him for today, tomorrow, and forever?”

“Yes, I do.” Beaming through her tears, Akane seconded Ranma’s vow, “Forever and beyond.”

Kazuya-san nodded in approval. “And do you promise to share your loving feelings outward with the world, focusing on both sharing and gaining wisdom, instead of spiraling inward and becoming self-absorbed?”

“We do,” the couple murmured.

“Do you pledge to treat each other with compassion and forgiveness, never forgetting that a rocky path sometimes teaches us more than a smooth one, and to offer compassion to both yourselves and others who experience suffering? Do you promise to keep your hearts open as you strive towards wisdom?”

“We do,” they repeated. 

Kazuya-san placed his hand over Ranma and Akane’s joined hands and continued, “Cling to each other through sorrows and joys, being lifted and lifting each other by turns. Go forward on your journey with faith, trust, love, and commitment, never forgetting the things you have pledged to each other and to the world.” He squeezed once and then lifted his hand. “I now pronounce you man and wife.”

Tucking his hand around Akane’s back, Ranma dipped her into a kiss. His lips pressed sweetly, claiming her mouth as he gave her all of his love and shared his joy. Surrounded by the intoxicating warmth of his body, Akane threw her hands around his shoulders and kissed him back with everything she had. Her body felt full of sunshine and rainbows. 

At last they separated to a chorus of wolf-whistles and cheers. “You finally did it! Congrats you two!” called a wickedly grinning Nabiki as she recorded everything with her lipstick camera. “These pictures are gonna sell like hotcakes.” Before Ranma could leap forward and grab the lipstick, Ryoga grabbed them in a tight hug. Once they could breathe again, the crowd swarmed forward to offer their own congratulations. 

After several minutes of celebration, everyone loaded into trucks and took off for the coast. The villagers returned home, the monks took off back to Okinawa, Nabiki led Ryoga to a chartered boat, and Ranma and Akane found themselves booked into a five-star hotel, alone for the first time in far too long.

As Akane entered the room ahead of him, Ranma paused in the doorway to just look at her. His heart clenched with love. They’d made it. Akane glowed with health and happiness. She was the most beautiful woman in the world, everyone else mere pastel to Akane’s vibrant red. Akane was his heart, the blood in his veins, the clench of his muscles, and the rush of victory. She was his obsession and desire, the center of his world. He wasn’t rational when it came to Akane. He had no limits. Despite all of that, she wouldn’t be scared away and couldn’t care less for his usefulness. She saw him as he truly was and accepted all of it. This was true love. This was everything he’d ever wanted and more. Belonging.  _ Soulmates _ .

There was nothing hanging over their heads, no enemies, no obligations, and no interruptions. The usual itch beneath his skin to be out learning new techniques or finding a worthy opponent to fight was gone. The only place he wanted to be was here. The only thing he wanted was the woman across the room and he had her. She’d given herself to him and claimed him in turn. He couldn’t recall ever feeling more peace and contentment. 

“My wife,” Ranma said with supreme satisfaction. 

Akane was feeling pretty gleeful about things herself. “My husband.” Akane turned and gave him a grin. Somehow, despite all of the obstacles, they were miraculously both alive. Ranma loved her. They were finally married to each other and had the rest of their lives to live side by side. 

Only one thing could make this better.

Eyes going heavy-lidded, Akane put her hand on one hip and ran it slowly over the curve and down to her thigh. Muscles up and down Ranma’s body went tight like a hungry panther about to pounce as his eyes followed the motion. “You ready to close that door and get this honeymoon started or what?” Akane asked, voice going husky with anticipation.

Not looking away from her for a second, Ranma moved the ‘ _ do not disturb _ ’ sign to the front of the door, closed it, and engaged the deadbolt. The electricity in his gaze made the hair rise on her arms. He was definitely looking at her like prey. “Fair warning, I might bite,” he said said in a deep voice that made things low in her body clench.

“Fair warning, I will bite  _ and _ claw,” Akane answered breathily, not one to back down from a challenge.

Face going sharp with desire, Ranma sent her an incendiary look from beneath unfairly long eyelashes and purred, “Mmm, I like the bite of your kitten claws. I can’t wait to make you mine.” 

“You’ll have to catch me first,” Akane twirled away with a wild laugh and leapt up onto the top of the bed. She dived for a pillow to attack him with, but Ranma snatched it from her hands before she could get a good grip and threw it over his shoulder. It sent a lamp knocking to the floor with a crash of broken ceramic. Laughing, they wrestled back and forth on the bedcovers until Akane found herself flat on her back with her arms pinned above her head by the heavy heat of his larger body. He gave off heat like a furnace.

Dropping a kiss on her chin, Ranma avoided her attempt to capture his lips, rubbing his nose against hers teasingly. 

“Ranma,” she protested as she squirmed in his hold, not really wanting to escape, just wanting more contact with his body and more kisses. 

“Wife,” he said with a smirk, “I just want you to know that you don’t have to worry about anything tonight.”

“I’m not worried, I’m impatient,” she muttered, trying to sound sour instead of charmed.

“Good, because I want you to know that I took my study of those pamphlets you gave me seriously, especially the ones on safety and how to pleasure a woman,” he said, dropping kisses down the side of her neck.

Shivering at the touch of his lips, she pushed past her embarrassment to find the courage to tease. “I don’t remember a pamphlet about that, though I’m sure bathtime with your girl-side had nothing to do with this knowledge, hmm?”

“If it did, know that I was usually imagining you in there with me, imagining how I’d touch you, taste you,” his lips dragged over her skin, tracing the slipping neckline of her robe and turning her into pudding in his hands. “We can do anything and everything you desire,” he murmured hotly against her skin. “Anything goes martial arts marriage.”

Then he pushed himself up and locked his arms, looking down at her face with raw desire and iron control. “I love you and I want you, but if at any point you want me to slow down or stop, if you’re uncomfortable or you don’t like something, just say the word. I know I’m not good at talking about this stuff, but your pleasure is mine and your protection is mine. I never want to do anything to hurt you.”

Giving him an adoring smile, Akane framed his face with her hands. Sometimes, he was so unexpectedly sweet. “Thank you. The same goes for you. If I get too excited and do something that hurts you instead of feels good,  _ tell me  _ instead of just enduring it, okay? Because your pleasure is mine too and this is new to both of us. There’s no rush. I mean, you make me crazy and I totally  _ want _ to rush, but we have the rest of our lives to figure this side of things out, so we should do it right and be honest with each other.” 

At his smile and nod, she tucked a lock of hair off his brow and bit her lip, trying to sound mature. “As for protection, the earrings are gone, but someone slid a box of condoms in my bag. I don’t know what affect the earrings had on our fertility, but I don’t think we’re ready for kids right away, do you?”

Still braced above her, Ranma turned pink and shook his head with relief, “No, you’re right. I want to master being a good husband first before taking on the role of—of a dad. When we’re ready, you’ll make a wonderful mom, but until then, well,” trailing off, his eyes fell to the parting neckline of her robe. Their wrestling had made it gape open, exposing the plump spill of her breasts above her bra. 

Ranma’s pupils dilated. Lips parting, his tongue darted out to wet his lips. Voice going rough, he said, “Until then, I think we should practice. Be right back.” Sliding off her body, he gulped a quick breath, wiped an arm across his forehead, and then ripped off his shirt. Throwing it onto the floor impatiently, he stalked across the room to search her bag.

“Bring the whole box,” Akane ordered, going breathless at the sight of all that golden skin. She wanted to sink her teeth into his bulging biceps, wanted to trace the cut line of muscle at his waist with her tongue and feel him shiver with need and unleashed desire. “I have a feeling we’re going to need lots and lots of practice.” Going up on her knees, she slid off the gauzy outer robe, which had already come untied, and reached back to undo her mangled obi.

Tossing the box of condoms onto the bed, Ranma batted her hands away and took over. “Hey, that’s my job. I want to unwrap this present myself.” The obi came loose and Ranma slid the loops down over her hips. “Happy birthday to me,” Ranma sighed happily as Akane’s kimono gaped wider. His fingers slipped forward to undo the final cord securing it shut around her waist.

Laughing and unexpectedly feeling completely unselfconscious, Akane wrapped her arms around Ranma’s broad shoulders and kissed him. “I love you,” she chanted against his lips, his cheeks, his throat. “I love you forever.”

“I love you,” he hummed happily as he nibbled on her ear and slid his big, warm hands inside the collar of her kimono and down her arms. “This, our life together, is going to be so much fun.” On the word  _ fun _ , he nipped her earlobe sharply, sending a ping of pleasure zipping down her spine.

Freeing her hands from the fabric, Akane planted her palms on his chest and pushed hard. Surprised, Ranma went sprawling back across the bed. Swinging her legs over his hips, she planted her hands on his rock hard abs and bared her teeth in a fierce grin. “Let’s get the party started, lover, though we’re still both overdressed.”

Sprawling back like a lazy tiger, Ranma folded his hands behind his head, making the muscles in his arms bulge obscenely. “I’ll give you to the count of ten to do whatever you want to me. Then I’m going to strip you naked and make you scream.”

Walking her fingers from the hem of his tenting pants up to the hollow of his throat, Akane licked her lips and purred, “I bet I can make you scream first.”

“You’re on,” Ranma hissed hotly, muscles jumping in his chest and the light of battle in his eyes. “And the time starts now. One, two, three….”

Several hours later, Akane looked around at the completely wrecked hotel room with a mixture of exhaustion, astonishment, and pride. The mattress was on the floor, the pillows devoid of stuffing, the walls full of holes, and the bathroom door hung akilter on a single hinge. Drowsily taking in the devastation, she asked, “Who would you say won our bet? I forgot to keep track.”

Not bothering to open his eyes, Ranma pulled her more snugly into the protective curve of his body and threw a possessive leg over her thigh. “Dunno. Let’s take a nap and have a rematch.” Dropping a kiss on her bare shoulder, he sighed. “G’night, wife.”

“Goodnight, husband.” Closing her eyes, Akane reminded herself to shove Ranma in a cold shower when they woke up to see his giddy reaction at the curse being gone. Then she’d make the water hot and they could christen the bathroom. After all, it was the only room they hadn’t wrecked yet. Smiling in anticipation, she drifted contentedly into the spirit realm, snuggled down in the hammock made of Ranma’s soul with a loving caress that made his threads vibrate with pleasure, and drifted off to sleep in a feedback loop of blissful, endless love. 

THE END

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy Ending for the Win as promised, and only a few days past Valentine’s Day 2018! Yay, I did it! Woot! Thank you so much for going on this journey with me! It “only” took me seven and a half years, the birth of two children, transitioning from grad school to normal life, three moves (one cross country), and several stops and starts to finally finish this, the longest story I’ve ever written. It has been a labor of love. I hope you enjoyed Ranma and Akane’s adventure. This couple has been dear to my heart since I first checked out a Ranma 1/2 VHS from Blockbuster back in the 90s. For those who’ve been with me since the beginning of this story back in 2010, thank you so much for your loyal support. Big hugs and high-fives to all of us!
> 
> The wedding ceremony was inspired by the webpage: Great Officiants and their Buddhist Wedding Ceremony. The kimono for Akane was inspired by a picture that I posted to my Indygodusk tumblr. Love to you all and please comment and tell me your thoughts on the story’s conclusion.


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